QTOCTAVIZ . From the growing development experienced by Computer Science in recent decades, the need arises for tools that offer a wide range of information access options, granting users a high level of intervention-decision through of a large number of interactive objects.
Mathematical assistants, as human and scientific work, do not escape this paradigm and in the same way it is about reaching the end users in the most enjoyable and utilitarian way possible. The systems on which Octave is supported in a particular way for the visualization of its results lack, in general, an efficient interactivity which makes the management of the properties of the representations cumbersome and hinders to a large extent the teaching process and / or or learning of those who seek knowledge through their employment.
The purpose of this software is to propose Qtoctaviz as an alternative to the plotters used by Octave, which will significantly support the teaching of mathematics with the use of this assistant. The new proposal abstracts the end user from the need to know cumbersome commands for the treatment of the representations, focusing only on the interaction with a popular system of windows and buttons, which provides easy access to all the information that can be managed in the system.
Summary
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- 1 Mathematical assistants
- 2 Materials and Methods
- 1 GNU Octave
- 2 VTK library
- 3 Qt Library
- 4 Qtcreator
- 3 Description and analysis of the proposed solution
- 1 System interactivity options
- 4 Results and discussion
- 5 Observations
- 6 Source
Mathematical assistants
The graphing tools used by mathematical assistants are one of the main tools used by modern science for Scientific Visualization of Data. In the particular case of mathematical assistants of numerical essence, the best known and used internationally is Matlab given the amount of features it has and the level of integration, extensibility and ease of use that it incorporates today.
Although these attractions are undeniable in said tool with high calculation power, it is no less true that it has high acquisition prices that make it completely unaffordable for universities and / or research or production centers, mainly from the third world. As a tool homologous to Matlab, there is the free and open source mathematical assistant Octave, which offers a set of facilities similar to Matlab, but the level of scientific visualization that Octave enables these days is far below the level of other proprietary applications .
Octave mainly uses two plotters to display its results Octaviz and Gnuplot; however, they have an inefficient degree of interactivity. The inefficient interactivity possessed by the systems for Scientific Visualization currently used by Octave, imposes a cumbersome process of managing the properties of the graphs, due to this the objective of the software is to propose Qtoctaviz as an interactive graphor for Scientific Visualization through Octave, that will eliminate the cumbersomeness of the graph property management process.
Materials and methods
GNU Octave
Octave can be defined as a high-level language inspired by commercial MATLAB software (MATrix LABoratory). Octave is not limited to simple work with matrices and vectors, like a mere calculator, but in addition to purely mathematical or numerical applications, it is applicable to multiple fields of science and engineering, including signal processing (sound), images (filtered, analysis, etc.), statistics, geometry, neural networks, feedback control systems and even vector drawing.
Written in C ++ using the STL library and has an interpreter of its own language that allows to execute sentences interactively, although it also allows batch execution, or what is the same: the execution of actions without user mediation. The interactive processing is carried out through the Octave language, a high-level interpreted language that supports a large part of the functions of the standard C library and other similar ones, which can be extended with the use of functions and procedures through modules. dynamic.
VTK library
VTK is an open source library under the BSD license for 2D and 3D graphics visualization and image processing. It consists of a C ++ class library including the possibility of an extension for Java , Python and Tcl. It supports a wide variety of display algorithms, including: vectors, scalars, tensors, textures and volumetric methods, and advanced modeling techniques such as implicit models, polygon reductions, mesh smoothing, contour cuts, and Delaunay triangulation. VTK has a wide information visualization framework, has a set of interaction 3D widgets, supports parallel processing and integrates with various databases on the graphical user interface such as Qt and Tk tools.
Qt Library
Qt appeared as a library in 1992 developed by Quasar Technologies back then, today Trolltech. It is a multiplatform library for developing graphical user interfaces and also for developing programs without graphical interface, such as console and server tools. Qt uses the C ++ programming language natively, additionally it can be used in several other programming languages through links. The library API has methods to access databases using SQL, as well as use of XML thread management, network support, a unified cross-platform API for file manipulation and a multitude of others for file management. in addition to traditional data structures.
Qtcreator
Qtcreator is a cross-platform IDE to develop C ++ applications in a simple and fast way created by Trolltech. As its name implies, it is based on the Qt library and has the following main features:
- Advanced editor for C ++.
- Integrated form designer (GUI).
- Tools for project management and construction.
- Automatic completion.
- Visual debugger.