ILNumerics - csi

This projects extends the Visual Studio CSharp Interactive REPL to provide fancy Matlab - like syntax and features for ad-hoc evaluations and prototyping in Visual Studio.

This repository hosts a script for the Visual Studio interactive CSharp console REPL (CSI). It provides convenience functions to be used inside the REPL and to simulate a look-and-feel similar to other popular mathematical prototyping systems, namely Matlab[R] and Octave.

ILNumerics CSI is a community project. It can be used by everyone free of charge. Please help to extend and maintain this project! We are happy to accept pull requests!

Requirements

• Visual Studio 2015, Update 1 or later
• ILNumerics 4.12 or later (download). Note that older version of ILNumerics will require a trial license to be valid on the system.

Getting started

We use the unmodified CSI REPL. To make the new features available download a script from this repository and load it into the CSI. The necessary steps are explained below.

1. Start Visual Studio and open the CSharp interactive REPL (CSI). The REPL is available in all editions of Visual Studio 2015, Update 1 or later. Go: VIEW -> Other Windows -> C# Interactive.

2. Now load the script from this git repository. You can do this directly from the REPL! Just use the WebClient.DownloadFile method. The CSI supports us in including the neccessary using directive. When we start typing...

   new WebClient()

... it displays a light bulb which we can use to add the suggested using System.Net namespace.

The full command to load the script will look like this:

 > using System.Net;
 . new WebClient().DownloadFile("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ILNumerics/csi/master/ilnumerics.rsp", "ilnumerics.rsp");

You can simply copy&paste these lines into the CSI REPL and press Enter. This will download the ILNumerics script from the GIT repository and store it into your user's directory.

3. Run the script in the REPL:

   #load "ilnumerics.rsp"

First Steps

Make all functions from ILMath directly available:

 using static ILNumerics.ILMath; 

Plot some numbers:

 plot(new double[] {1,3,2,4,-2,-3,10,0.4});

Plot some more numbers, use the same figure and ILMath.randn():

 plot(randn(1,10000));

Give the figure a name. (Use the CSI light bulb to import new namespaces! When the light bulb is shown just press CTRL+.)

 figure().Scene.Add(new ILTitle("my Plot is Hot"))

Move the title with the left mouse button:

Use the left mouse on the plot cubes content to drag a zoom rectangle, double click resets the scene, right mouse is for panning.

Next steps

The scripts in this repository build a bridge between ILNumerics and the CSI REPL. This is just a very early starting point. Until more higher-level functions have been implemented into ILNumerics-csi (the script in this repository) you can already use all of ILNumerics Computing Engine, Visualization Engine and Toolboxes' features by utilizing the common API.

Add a new figure as 3D plot cube:

 var pc = figure(2).Scene.Add(new ILPlotCube(twoDMode: false));

In 3D the left mouse rotates the scene, scene reset and panning are done just like for 2D.

Create an empty fast surface and update it with example terrain data:

 var sf = pc.Add(new ILFastSurface());
 sf.Update(Z: tosingle(ILSpecialData.terrain), colormap: Colormaps.Hot);
 // add a colorbar
 sf.Add(new ILColorbar()); 
 // dont forget the [obligatory for the low-level API] call to Configure()
 sf.Configure();
 // reset the plot cube limits
 figure().PlotCube.Reset();

Add a down-scaled version of the same data as regular wireframed, lit surface:

 var sf2 = figure().PlotCube.Add(
    new ILSurface(
        interp2(tosingle(ILSpecialData.terrain),
                Xn1: X1, Xn2: X1,
                method: ILNumerics.Toolboxes.InterpolationMethod.spline) + 4000,
        X1, X1));
 sf2.UseLighting = true; 
 sf2.Configure(); 

Configure axis label:

 figure().PlotCube.Axes.XAxis.Label.Text = @"Distance \Delta_1 [km]" 

Handle mouse events. Here: pick position on upper surface and display the value in forms title bar:

 figure().Panel.SceneSyncRoot.First<ILSurface>().Fill.MouseClick += (_s, _a) => {
    var pick = figure().Panel.PickPrimitiveAt(_a.Target as ILDrawable, _a.Location);
    if (pick != null && pick.VerticesWorld.S[0] > 2) {
        float s = pick.VerticesWorld.GetValue(0, 3);
        float v = pick.VerticesWorld.GetValue(1, 3);
        // The third barycentric coordinate is not stored. You can compute it easily 
        // using the following formula: 
        float t = 1 - s - v;
        // interpolate: here, we interpolate the position 
        ILArray<float> interp = pick.VerticesWorld["0;0:2;0"] * s
                          + pick.VerticesWorld["1;0:2;0"] * v
                          + pick.VerticesWorld["2;0:2;0"] * t;
        figure(2).Text = $"X:{interp.GetValue(0)} Y:{interp.GetValue(1)} Z:{interp.GetValue(2)}";
    }
 };

More...

• ILNumerics is designed for technical application development. Enabling it to be used interactively the way described here is our way of saying 'thanks' to the community. You were supporting the project for almost 10 years now!

• Visit the ILNumerics Examples section to get more ideas what is possible with ILNumerics. Fetch your own license and read more in the ILNumerics online documentation.

• Fork this repository and add new higher-level functions, similar to plot etc. Send pull requests and open new issues here on github.

• Spread the word!