Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom volunteer work ideas

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Quoting Tim Daly <address@hidden>:

> Interactive 3D Object in Axiom documentation
>
> Axiom is being rewritten into a literate programming style.
> That means that all of the source code will be in pdfs.
> There is a site:
> http://meshlabstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/creating-interactive-3d-objects-inside.html
> which allows someone to put a 3D object into a pdf yet keep
> it interactive. Axiom can create 3D images. I'd like to be able
> to put one of those images into the Axiom pdfs. If you look at
> Volume 1, Chapter 10 it shows how to draw 3D objects.
> Demonstrate an Axiom 3D graph being used interactively in a pdf.

PDFs with embedded 3D objects are extremely cool - there's a piece of  
magic called "U3D" involved. Adobe has proprietary tools that do this  
magic, but I'm not sure there's a fully open-source tool set with a  
reasonable work flow. I remember downloading some stuff a couple of  
years ago and giving up on it. A quad core and 8 GB of RAM might be a  
big help. ;-)

> Fortran Library work
>
> If you want something more mathematical there are a large number of
> fortran library routines that were part of the commercial version of
> Axiom but were not released to open source. See Volume 10.3 and look
> for the ASP domains. These are Axiom "covers" for the NAG fortran
> library. There are 2 possible paths to explore, either to find a
> standard fortran library and rewrite the cover routines or find
> algorithms (e.g. runga-kutta integration) and write lisp routines
> to fit "under the covers" (Axiom is written in Lisp).
> Demonstrate the lisp or fortran routine being used from Axiom.

How much of this number crunching is already in GSL? Does it *have* to  
be FORTRAN? Why not C? The C compilers may have sucked wet dog fur  
when NAG was selling FORTRAN libraries, but they're fine now. Now that  
I think about it, I'd love to be able to simply "shell out to R" from  
Axiom. The closest thing to that is to run R and use Ryacas to talk to  
a Yacas server for the symbolic stuff. I'd rather work in a symbolic  
language and use a *numerical* server.

> FORTRAN/Python
>
> Axiom generates Fortran output. I want to change this to also
> generate Python output. See )set output fortran on
> I want to be able to do )set output python on
> Demonstrate automatically constructing a python program from Axiom

How about Ruby? Rationals and Matrices thereof are a "standard  
library" in Ruby. How about R or Octave code?

> Fast Fourier Transform
>
> I have a need for FFTs. Figure out how to implement this in Lisp:
> http://www.fftw.org/
> Demonstrate an FFTW in Axiom called from the command line

I've seen FFTs in Lisp, although I can't remember where. There's  
probably a Scheme macro to do it, too. ;-)

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
borasky-research.net/m-edward-ed-borasky/

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." ~ Paul Erdos