Newsletters - MATLAB News & Notes

MATLAB 6 Is Here

New features provide direct access to the power of MATLAB

by Lisa Kempler

MATLAB 6 offers a more effective, integrated platform for new and experienced users to learn, access, and apply the range of MATLAB capabilities. This release has significant enhancements in all key areas, including data import, math, data analysis, plotting and visualization, and programming. It features a new desktop front end, plus multiple new tools that simplify a variety of technical computing tasks. In addition, MATLAB 6 provides several new external interfaces, such as support for additional graphical file formats, communication with external devices via the serial port, and the ability to call Java directly from MATLAB.

The MATLAB desktop

MATLAB 6 features a new interface, the MATLAB desktop, that houses an integrated collection of tools for interacting with the MATLAB environment. The desktop tools are integrated so that actions performed in one component are reflected in others. The Command Window, familiar to current MATLAB users from previous versions, is just one of eight desktop components. The new Launch Pad provides quick access to demos, help, and tools for all the products that you've installed. The new Command History Window maintains a running log of the commands typed in the Command Window across sessions. You can evaluate these commands in place, or you can cut and paste into the Command Window or into an M-file. Changes you make to MATLAB variables in the Command Window or Command History Window are visible in the Workspace Browser, a new desktop component for viewing information on variables.

The new help system integrates help for all of the MathWorks products installed on your system. Here a search on "transparency" displays the list of found entries (left) and the text of the selected section (right) in the Help Navigator Window. Click on image to see enlarged view (31 k).

For developing and debugging M-file programs, the desktop includes an updated M-file Editor/Debugger, complete with line numbering and syntax-sensitive color-coding. From the Editor/Debugger, you can automatically bring up the interactive Array Editor by clicking on a variable in the displayed M-file. Clicking on a function name in an M-file will bring up the help screen for that particular function. You can also paste code from the Command History Window directly into the M-file. For developing applications that include GUIs, the enhanced GUIDE (Graphical User Interface Development Environment) provides an easy-to-use, intuitive, and robust set of tools/environment for designing and building GUIs that you can call directly from your MATLAB programs. These desktop tools provide quick access to MATLAB code, variables, data files, graphics, demos, and online help, enabling you to find what you need when you need it. As a result, complex tasks are achievable faster and are much more approachable.

New, easy-to-use importing, plotting, and visualization features

A typical data analysis process that many users go through involves: importing data, processing that data (e.g., removing outliers, smoothing), plotting the data, annotating and editing the plot, and exporting the graphical result, perhaps to an external application such as Microsoft® Word. MATLAB 6 provides new interactive tools that make data import, plot creation, annotation, modification, and printing easier. In keeping with the goal of making MATLAB more intuitive for both new and familiar tasks, MATLAB 6 includes a variety of different paths for working with graphics. The primary graphics tool is the Figure Toolbar, displayed at the top of the Figure Window. This toolbar includes items for adding text, legends, arrows, lines, and axes, as well as calculating data statistics and curve fits directly from the plot window.

Demonstrating MATLAB's plotting and graphical analysis capabilities, this 2-D plot illustrates the tracking of CO2 concentration over time (in years). Using the Basic Fitting menu option in the new graphics toolbar, we applied 4th and 7th degree polynomial fits to the data. Click on image to see enlarged view (22 k).

You can also modify plot attributes by clicking directly on the graphical element you want to change, to display the Property Editor. All of these methods are compatible with M-files and MAT-files from previous MATLAB versions, allowing you to preserve and evolve your existing code and data. To simplify the task of creating graphical output, MATLAB 6 includes new Windows-style page setup tools that allow you to configure your hardcopy and exported graphics. For exporting graphical animations, the new support for AVI movie format lets you share your MATLAB animations.

New MATLAB mathematical foundation

With MATLAB 6, the core mathematics and signal process-
ing foundation have been upgraded to faster, state-of-the-art numeric libraries. MATLAB now relies on the optimized LAPACK and ATLAS BLAS linear algebra libraries, resulting in significant speedups for matrix computations involving large matrices. Algorithms that rely on the FFT (fast Fourier transform) now take advantage of FFTW, a library created at MIT with improved performance across the range of FFT-based operation, with the largest speedups for vectors of prime lengths. This especially benefits applications involving signal and image processing.

New External interfaces to data and code

A variety of new interfaces simplify the process of getting data into MATLAB. A new interactive tool, the Import Wizard, lets you selectively import data from external data files in many formats supported by MATLAB, such as Excel, CSV, JPEG, GIF, and AVI. Offering another mechanism to access external data, the new serial port interface enables MATLAB to communicate via your computer's RS-232, RS-485 or RS-422 port. This interface allows MATLAB to exchange data directly with hardware devices such as modems and printers, without relying on additional software. With this release, you can access the power of Java with the new MATLAB Java interface. You can run Java from MATLAB directly from the MATLAB command line or M-files. You can also use MATLAB syntax to create and access Java objects, run Java methods, and pass data between Java objects and MATLAB variables. This new capability allows you to access publicly available Java tools, such as GUI components, directly from MATLAB applications.

Customer feedback and product usability

The set of new features that The MathWorks selected for MATLAB 6 reflects the needs and feedback from the MATLAB user community. To ensure that we built the products our customers wanted, The MathWorks made the usability of MATLAB 6 and its companion products a top priority during the entire development process. After establishing an in-house usability team and fully equipping our test laboratory, we conducted more than 500 customer visits and usability tests to determine customer needs and optimize feature design. "We wanted to guarantee that our users would find the new release both intuitive and powerful," said Mary Beth Rettger, president of the Usability Professionals' Association and manager of usability at The MathWorks. "Having done our homework during the early stages of development and the beta test, we are very confident the MATLAB 6 features and interfaces meet our users' requirements."

Summary

The combination of these new features in MATLAB 6 provide unprecedented access to the power of the MATLAB language, math, and graphics. Both experienced and new users can approach new tasks more quickly and manage complex tasks more easily, with less need to memorize commands. These features minimize the need to focus on using MATLAB, giving you more time and energy to focus on your work. 

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