SciPy
SciPy is a library of opensource software for mathematics, science and engineering. The main site is at www.SciPy.org. It is sponsored by www.Enthought.com out of Austin Texas.
The SciPy site also has docs for NumPy which is a numerical package started by Travis Oliphant while earning his PhD at the Mayo Clinic. He used it to analyze multi-dimensional MRI and ultrasound data. He is now VP at Enthought.
Enthought has a Python distribution package with all the goodies preconfigured and ready to go in one install. The distribution is available at http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php. Using the distribution would be the easiest way to go. Two interesting Enthought tools included in the package are Mayavi and Chaco.
Mayavi
- Mayavi is a 3D visualization tool.
- Here are some screenshots of it—
Chaco
- Another tool they include is Chaco, a 2D plotter.
- Here are some interesting screenshots of it—
- The wiki for the Enthought tools is at-
There’s a great list of other useful science, math, and graphing tools is on the SciPy Topical Software page—
Sage
Another package unrelated to SciPy is called Sage http://www.sagemath.org/.
- It is an opensource alternative to Mathematica and MATLAB. It uses Python as it’s interface language. Looks interesting.
- Here are some screenshots of Sage in action-
- There’s an hour long introduction to Sage on Google video—
- Intro to free math software SAGE by William Stein