Section: Software

Interval analysis libraries

ALIAS

Participants : David Daney, Jean-Pierre Merlet [correspondant] , Odile Pourtallier.

The ALIAS library (Algorithms Library of Interval Analysis for Systems), whose development started in 1998, is a collection of procedures based on interval analysis for systems solving and optimization.

ALIAS is made of two parts:

• ALIAS-C++ : the C++ library (87 000 code lines) which is the core of the algorithms

• ALIAS-Maple : the Maple interface for ALIAS-C++ (55 000 code lines). This interface allows one to specify a solving problem within Maple and get the results within the same Maple session. The role of this interface is not only to generate the C++ code automatically, but also to perform an analysis of the problem in order to improve the efficiency of the solver. Furthermore, a distributed implementation of the algorithms is available directly within the interface.

Although these libraries are intended to be used within the project-team they can be freely downloaded as a library file (but the user may introduce its own code in several part of the package) and has been used for example at LIRMM and IRCCyN.

Int4Sci : a Scilab interface for interval analysis

Participants : David Daney, Gilles Trombettoni, Bertrand Neveu.

In 2006, we have started the development of a Scilab interface to C++ Bias/Profil interval arithmetic package and to the library ALIAS. The first version of Int4Sci has been released in 2008 – see http://www-sop.inria.fr/coprin/logiciels/Int4Sci/ for linux, MacOS and Windows. A second version, compatible with Scilab 5.3 is in preparation . This interface provides an interval arithmetic, basic interval manipulation tools as well as the solving of linear interval systems. All functions are documented and a tutorial is available. Int4Sci is used in several universities for teaching the basis of interval analysis in place of using Rump's INTLAB for Matlab. We however lack the manpower to further enhance this software.

Mathematica Interface to Interval Analysis

Participants : Yves Papegay [correspondant] , Jean-Pierre Merlet.

Since 2006, we have been implementing in Mathematica a high-level modular interface to the ALIAS library. Lack of manpower has slowed down this development.