Re: [ublas] Status of development /Benchmarks

Subject: Re: [ublas] Status of development /Benchmarks
From: Sean Reilly (campreilly_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-11 17:01:54

My 2 cents for what it is worth.

My project started using uBLAS not for its linear algebra capabilities per
se, But rather to create fast matrix and vector operations for modeling and
signal processing.  In other words, a Matlab-like framework for C++.

Long time users of Matlab are used to the fact that it runs much, much fast
when you use matrix operations (even element by element ones like ./ and
.*) than it does when you do those same calculations in a loop.  I saw the
uBLAS' utilization of template meta programming as holding the same
optimization potential for C++.

Given my druthers, I'd like to see uBLAS re-focus providing a fast
computational framework and not try to become everything for everyone (ex:
let someone else do the distributed part).  Having said that, I think a few
things might help to that end.

   - Unifying matrix and vector so that people adding functionality don't
   have to do it twice.
   - A library of math.h algorithms implemented as uBLAS functions.  I
   wrote one for double, float, complex<double>, and complex<float> that I'd
   be happy yo contribute.
   - An ability to do fast indexing like Matlab's find() function and x(a)
   where x is a matrix/vector and a is a matrix/vector.  My goal would be to
   create interpolation routines that took a matrix/vectors of double/floats
   as an argument.  Step #1 is to find the neighborhood of the arguments on
   the axes.  For this, you'd want it to return a matrix/vector of unsigned
   integers.

The long term goal would be to not only linear algebra, but also coordinate
rotations, statistics, filtering, interpolation, Fourier transforms,
derivatives, etc.  In my vision, many of these other features could be
provided by people outside of the core uBLAS team.  I'd be very interest to
see what the ViennaCL people are up to in their effort to support GPU
processors using uBLAS syntax.

Sean Reilly

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 7:22 AM, Rutger ter Borg <rutger_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 2013-12-09 11:18, sguazt wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> +1 for a library with loosely-coupled feature, even if this means a
>> completely rewriting of uBLAS
>>
>> For the integration of computational kernels, why don't we use the
>> boost-numeric_bindings lib?
>>
>> Also, I'd like to have more MATLAB-like functionalities (I've
>> implemented some of them in boost-ublasx, but they relies on
>> boost-numeric_bindings and LAPACK functions)
>>
>>
> If there is enough interest to integrate (parts of) the numeric bindings
> library, I'm willing to help.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rutger
>
>
>
>
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