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Abstract: Matlab is now well-established as an effective tool for performing numerical experiments and graphical simulations. Its simple, high-level programming language allows rapid development of new projects and facilitates debugging. However, a high-level interpreted language such as MATLAB m-code cannot compete in speed and memory efficiency with traditional compiled languages such as Fortran and C. Even on a modern workstation, the capacity to perform complex two and three-dimensional simulations is limited.
In this talk we will investigate some of the possibilities for alleviating bottlenecks in slow or memory intensive Matlab programs. We will briefly consider the use of the Profiler in identifying these bottlenecks, the vectorisation of m-files, and the use of the Matlab Compiler. We will then look in detail at the Matlab Application Program Interface which allows one to incorporate C and Fortran routines directly into Matlab programs. I will describe how to write and build MEX files using a simple example and will make a quantitative cost comparison between the different strategies.