Description

MATLAB (MATrix LABoratory) is a popular, powerful, general-purpose system or environment for matrix algebra calculations and many other more specific computations and applications in Biology, Aerospace, Finance, data acquisition, etc. MATLAB may be used interactively or in batch. In addition, it supports a wide array of graphical applications, ranging from bar charts, line and surface plots to volumetric rendering.

Boston University offers a MATLAB Campus-Wide License. That means unlimited use of MATLAB, Simulink, and online learning tools for all students, faculty, staff, and researchers, on and off campus, on any device. Find out more and download what you need from our MATLAB portal: Boston University MATLAB Portal

Take advantage of free access to interactive courses through Boston University’s Campus-Wide Online Training subscription and build your MATLAB/Simulink skills. Find out more: Campus-Wide Online Training and then view the courses under Online Training.

Use MATLAB Grader to create interactive, auto-graded course assignments with instant learner feedback. Find out more: MATLAB Grader

Availability and Setup

Many older as well as recent versions of MATLAB are available, you can load any of them using the modules as explained here.

Those who wish to install MATLAB on their own computers, rather than using it on the SCC, should consult the MATLAB licenses page.

To enable graphics, MATLAB is best used from an OnDemand Desktop environment.

Users accessing the SCC to run MATLAB from a PC or Mac in a terminal will likely want to set up X Forwarding.

Running MATLAB Interactively

Running MATLAB interactively in the default mode enables graphics. This is best done in an OnDemand Desktop session to run it. To invoke MATLAB on the SCC, load the desired module version, then type:

scc1$ matlab

This should bring up MATLAB in its own separate window with the Command Window active and the >> MATLAB command prompt. This signifies that you have successfully started the MATLAB environment.

On clients without xterm or if graphics are not needed, you can start MATLAB with graphics disabled:

scc1$ matlab -nodisplay

                            < M A T L A B (R) >
                  Copyright 1984-2013 The MathWorks, Inc.
                    R2013a (8.1.0.604) 64-bit (glnxa64)
                             February 15, 2013
To get started, type one of these: helpwin, helpdesk, or demo.
For product information, visit www.mathworks.com.
>>

To close either version of the MATLAB session, enter exit or quit:

>> exit

Running MATLAB in Batch

See MATLAB Batch Jobs on the SCC.

Help/Documentation

To get started with MATLAB, you can watch our video Using MATLAB on the SCC. Alternatively, you can go to The Mathworks, MATLAB’s developer, site to learn using their MATLAB Onramp series on a wide range of applications. More frequently, users get help from within the MATLAB environment using the command help followed by the name of the utility function. For example,

>> help cos

If you don’t know the name of the utility, you can search with a succinct description (enclosed in single quotes to preserve spaces if multiple words are used) of the application, like this:

>> lookfor cosine
acos                           - Inverse cosine, result in radians.
acosd                          - Inverse cosine, result in degrees.
acosh                          - Inverse hyperbolic cosine.
cos                            - Cosine of argument in radians.
cosd                           - Cosine of argument in degrees.
cosh                           - Hyperbolic cosine.
. . .

To read the MATLAB documentation

>> help doc

As part of our RCS Online Code Examples section, we also have quite a large number of MATLAB code examples covering a broad set of topics.