[chuug] Programming Language and Libraries for Science

[Alex Janssen]

Katherine Holcomb said the following on 07/09/2007 08:40 AM:
> As somebody recommended, Python is an option, though if he's doing much
> numerical work he could code that in Fortran 95 and use Pyfortran
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyfortran) or maybe something similar
> like f2py to link them up.  Note: gcc 4.1 or higher (4.2 should be out
> soon) is required for adequate gfortran.
>
> However, Python does not do specialized graphics per se.  It's fairly
> easy to make GUIs with it (for the controls) using an add-on like
> Tkinter, but I don't know how easy it would be to draw lenses.  There
> are various Python packages to produce conventional graphics (including
> 3D) but actual lens diagrams is more like the kind of thing a CAD
> program would do.  There are some inexpensive CAD programs for Windows
> (e.g. TurboCad) that are probably fine for "fooling around" but I know
> of nothing for Linux.
>
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 20:19 +0200, Christopher Covington wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've got a friend who is a retired optical engineer interested in
>> programming applications with relative ease. He really like spin
>> controls to alter input data for the physics-related graphs and
>> diagrams that he is interested in producing. He has tried various
>> languages through the years and firmly believes that Fortran 95 is the
>> best language for programming physical stuff, with its easy vector
>> operations and the like. The downside is that he never was able to
>> easily code graphics like he wanted using it.
>>
>> The question is whether y'all can recommend a programming language
>> (+libraries) that is handy for fooling around with physics equations,
>> has widgets and can produce pretty graphs and diagrams of mutilated
>> trigonomic functions or a series of lenses. Inexpensive is a must,
>> free preferred. Plus-points for cross-platform.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Chris
>> _______________________________________________
>> Chuug mailing list
>> Chuug at listmgr.cv.nrao.edu
>> http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/mailman/listinfo/chuug
>>     
As far as simple 2d cad for linux, there's QCAD from
www.ribbonsoft.com.  There may be others, but that's the one I use.

Alex

-- 
Ourwoods.org
Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal if you don't use your 
thumbs. (80)