ICS 274: MATLAB Information

Information about MATLAB

We will be using the MATLAB environment for in CS 277. MATLAB is a high-level scientific and engineering programming environment which allows easy visualization of data, has an extensive library of built-in functions for data manipulation, and is widely used in universities and research labs around the world.

Matlab

Often we will write code for the course using the Matlab environment. Matlab is accessible through NACS computers at several campus locations (e.g., MSTB-A, MSTB-B, and the ICS lab), and if you want a copy for yourself student licenses are fairly inexpensive ($100). Personally, I do not recommend the open-source Octave program as a replacement, as the syntax is not 100% compatible and may cause problems (for me or you).

If you are not familiar with Matlab, there are a number of tutorials on the web:

University of Utah, very short
CMU / UMichigan tutorial, also short
University of Florida's tutorial, more complete
Union College / Cyclismo.Org tutorial, also good
UMaryland guide, lots of pointers to other tutorials and reference manuals

You may want to start with one of the very short tutorials, then use the longer ones as a reference during the rest of the term.

Accessing MATLAB at UCI:

MATLAB is available in the ICS 364 labs on certain machines.
You should also be able to access MATLAB via the PCs in the instructional OIC Computer Labs, e.g., the MSTB A and B labs, whenever there is no class scheduled there (e.g., in the evenings and on the weekends).
You could get a license for your PC if you wish to purchase the MATLAB student version from the bookstore ($100) or get access to the campuswide license (also about $100, contact NACS to figure out how to do this). You could ask your advisor to pay for this :) if you also plan to use MATLAB for research..
Another option is to download Octave, which is an open-source alternative to MATLAB with the same syntax and much of the same basic functionality (the graphics are not quite as powerful, but should work for this class).

Online MATLAB Tutorials and Resources:
There are some useful introductory tutorials on MATLAB online (below). Note also that once you start MATLAB and are within the MATLAB environment, you can simply type "doc" and a very extensive set of online documentation will come up in your Web browser, including access to a basic tutorial (e.g., select "Getting Started").

Very simple introductory Tutorial

MATLAB tutorial from Carnegie Mellon University engineering

Slightly more advanced Tutorials

More complete references/tutorials/FAQs

MATLAB tutorial/page at U Maryland (this is quite extensive)
and of course the Mathworks home page for MATLAB (the company that writes and sells MATLAB)