What’s new in MATLAB 2011a?
Every time there is a new MATLAB release I take a look to see which new features interest me the most and share them with the world. If you find this article interesting then you may also enjoy similar articles on 2010b and 2010a.
Simpler random number control
MATLAB 2011a introduces the function rng which allows you to control random number generation much more easily. For example. in older versions of MATLAB you would have to do the following to reseed the default random number stream to something based upon the system time.
RandStream.setDefaultStream(RandStream('mt19937ar','seed',sum(100*clock)));
In MATLAB 2011a you can achieve something similar with
rng shuffle
- I have updated my introduction to parallel random numbers in MATLAB to reflect this change. I really need to write part 2 of that series!
- Click here for a Mathworks video showing how this new function works in more detail
Faster Functions
I love it when The Mathworks improve the performance of some of their functions because you can guarantee that, in an organisation as large as the one I work for, there will always be someone who’ll be able to say ‘Wow! I switched to the latest version of MATLAB and my code runs faster.’ All of the following timings were performed on a 3Ghz quad-core running Ubuntu Linux with the cpu-selector turned up to maximum for all 4 cores. In all cases the command was run 5 times and an average taken. Some of the faster functions include conv, conv2, qz, complex eig and svd. The speedup on svd is astonishing!
a=rand(1,100000); b=rand(1,100000); tic;conv(a,b);toc
MATLAB 2010a: 3.31 seconds
MATLAB 2011a: 1.56 seconds
a=rand(1000,1000); b=rand(1000,1000); tic;q=qz(a,b);toc
MATLAB 2010a: 36.67 seconds
MATLAB 2011a: 22.87 seconds
a=rand(1000,1000); tic;[U,S,V] = svd(a);toc
MATLAB 2010a: 9.21 seconds
MATLAB 2011a: 0.7114 seconds
Symbolic toolbox gets beefed up
Ever since its introduction back in MATLAB 2008b, The Mathworks have been steadily improving the Mupad-based symbolic toolbox. Pretty much all of the integration failures that I and my readers identified back then have been fixed for example. MATLAB 2011a sees several new improvements but I’d like to focus on improvements for non-algebraic equations.
Take this system of equations
solve('10*cos(a)+5*cos(b)=x', '10*sin(a)+5*sin(b)=y', 'a','b')
MATLAB 2011a finds the (extremely complicated) symbolic solution whereas MATLAB 2010b just gave up.
Here’s another one
syms an1 an2;
eq1 = sym('4*cos(an1) + 3*cos(an1+an2) = 6');
eq2 = sym('4*sin(an1) + 3*sin(an1+an2) = 2');
eq3 = solve(eq1,eq2);
MATLAB 2010b only finds one solution set and it’s approximate
>> eq3.an1 ans = -0.057562921169951811658913433179187 >> eq3.an2 ans = 0.89566479385786497202226542634536
MATLAB 2011a, on the other hand, finds two solutions and they are exact
>> eq3.an1 ans = 2*atan((3*39^(1/2))/95 + 16/95) 2*atan(16/95 - (3*39^(1/2))/95) >> eq3.an2 ans = -2*atan(39^(1/2)/13) 2*atan(39^(1/2)/13)
MATLAB Compiler has improved parallel support
Lifted direct from the MATLAB documentation:
MATLAB Compiler generated standalone executables and libraries from parallel applications can now launch up to eight local workers without requiring MATLAB® Distributed Computing Server™ software.
Amen to that!
GPU Support has been beefed up in the parallel computing toolbox
A load of new functions now support GPUArrays.
cat colon conv conv2 cumsum cumprod eps filter filter2 horzcat meshgrid ndgrid plot subsasgn subsindex subsref vertcat
You can also index directly into GPUArrays now and the amount of MATLAB code supported by arrayfun for GPUArrays has also been increased to include the following.
&, |, ~, &&, ||, while, if, else, elseif, for, return, break, continue, eps
This brings the full list of MATLAB functions and operators supported by the GPU version of arrayfun to
abs acos acosh acot acoth acsc acsch asec asech asin asinh atan atan2 atanh bitand bitcmp bitor bitshift bitxor ceil complex conj cos cosh cot coth |
csc csch double eps erf erfc erfcinv erfcx erfinv exp expm1 false fix floor gamma gammaln hypot imag Inf int32 isfinite isinf isnan log log2 |
log10 log1p logical max min mod NaN pi real reallog realpow realsqrt rem round sec sech sign sin single sinh sqrt tan tanh true uint32 |
+ - .* ./ .\ .^ == ~= < <= > >= & | ~ && || Scalar expansion versions of the following: * / \ ^ |
Branching instructions:
break continue else elseif for if return while |
The Parallel Computing Toolbox is not the only game in town for GPU support on MATLAB. One alternative is Jacket by Accelereyes and they have put up a comparison between the PCT and Jacket. At the time of writing it compares against 2011a.
More information about GPU support in various mathematical software packages can be found here.
Toolbox mergers and acquisitions
There have been several license related changes in this version of MATLAB comprising of 2 new products, 4 mergers and one name change. Sadly, none of my toolbox-merging suggestions have been implemented but let’s take a closer look at what has been done.
- The Communications Blockset and Communications Toolbox have merged into what’s now called the Communications System Toolbox. This new product requires another new product as a pre-requisite – The DSP System Toolbox.
- The DSP System Toolbox isn’t completely new, however, since it was formed out of a merger between the Filter Design Toolbox and Signal Processing Blockset.
- Stateflow Coder and Real-Time Workshop have combined their powers to form the new Simulink Coder which depends upon the new MATLAB Coder.
- The new Embedded Coder has been formed from the merging of no less than 3 old products: Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder, Target Support Package, and Embedded IDE Link. This new product also requires the new MATLAB Coder.
- MATLAB Coder is totally new and according to the Mathwork’s blurb it “generates standalone C and C++ code from MATLAB® code. The generated source code is portable and readable.” I’m looking forward to trying that out.
- Next up, is what seems to be little more than a renaming exercise since the Video and Image Processing Blockset has been renamed the Computer Vision System Toolbox.
Personally, few of these changes affect me but professionally they do since I have users of many of these toolboxes. An original set of 9 toolboxes has been rationalized into 5 (4 from mergers and the new MATLAB Coder) and I do like it when the number of Mathwork’s toolboxes goes down. To counter this, there is another new product called The Phased Array System Toolbox.
So, that rounds up what was important for me in MATLAB 2011a. What did you like/dislike about it?
Other blog posts about 2011a
- Introducing MATLAB 2011a – From Mike on the Desktop
- Welcome to the Coders – Guy and Seth on Simulink
- MATLAB 2011a Installation on Linux – Mount Permission issues
what happened to the cost after the mergers?
Jacket now includes CULA from EM Photonics. That gives it a major edge over PCT
Didnt know that Jacket included CULA; thanks for letting me know.
I recently got funding for enough network licenses for the PCT to supply our uni. I considered Jacket (its a great product) but didnt go with it for the following reasons.
-PCT provides explicit multicore support. This will benefit far more users than a CUDA only product.
-network licenses for jacket are more expensive than network licenses for PCT. I could support more users by going with PCT.
-I fully expect PCT CUDA to become the dominant CUDA solution for MATLAB in the long run. PCT is behind jacket right now but surely this wont last given Mathworks resources.
Cheers,
mike
The above mentioned hard symbolic problem:
solve(’10*cos(a)+5*cos(b)=x’, ’10*sin(a)+5*sin(b)=y’, ‘a’,’b’)
produce on MATLAB 2011a (Ubuntu 10.10 64bit) the following result:
>> solve(’10*cos(a)+5*cos(b)=x’, ’10*sin(a)+5*sin(b)=y’, ‘a’,’b’)
Warning: The solutions are parametrized by the symbols:
z = (Dom::ImageSet(arccos(x/5 + 2) + 2*PI*k, k, Z_) union Dom::ImageSet(- arccos(x/5 + 2) + 2*PI*k,
k, Z_)) intersect (Dom::ImageSet(PI – arcsin(y/5) + 2*PI*k, k, Z_) union Dom::ImageSet(arcsin(y/5) +
2*PI*k, k, Z_))
z12 = (Dom::ImageSet(arccos(x/10 + 1/2) + 2*PI*k, k, Z_) union Dom::ImageSet(- arccos(x/10 + 1/2) +
2*PI*k, k, Z_)) intersect (Dom::ImageSet(PI – arcsin(y/10) + 2*PI*k, k, Z_) union
Dom::ImageSet(arcsin(y/10) + 2*PI*k, k, Z_))
> In solve at 94
ans =
a: [4×1 sym]
b: [4×1 sym]
So, I am not sure if this result is acceptable as a real improvement.
On the other hand the MUPAD provides full solution.
Are they using 128-bit floats? That’s an awful lot of decimal digits to print in “-0.057562921169951811658913433179187”
128-bit floats would be very cool.
I don’t think so. It’s probably arbitrary precision arithmetic.
yes eventually PCT will catch up with jacket. That’s why Jacket has now opted for libjacket for C/C++ code so they are now looking outside matlab for their product. Mathworks to me is a slow moving Giant. Fastest way for them will be to just buy CULA.
AMD users are still left out either way. OpenCL allows both CPUs and GPUs; sadly we haven’t seen any good product targeting OpenCL.
just found out that Jacket 1.7 now allows you to run the code on the CPU as well. Here is their blog post explaining it http://blog.accelereyes.com/blog/2011/03/17/write_once_run_everywhere/
Its a nice trick but It’s not actually doing anything to parallelise on the CPU though. What the info in that link does is allow you write more portable functions. If function user has jacket and GPU then all he need do is pass a garray and he gets GPU acceleration. If user doesn’t have jacket,GPU then he just passes normal array and function runs on CPU with no acceleration or parallelisation.
As for OpenCL, Mathematica has support for that.
Finally, news just in, if you buy PGI Accelerator products then you can write code that parallelises over CPU or GPU using CUDA.
http://www.pgroup.com/resources/cuda-x86.htm
Hi! Just stumbled upon your awesome blog looking for info on smart seeding of independent Mersenne Twister rngs. Just wanted to add my interest in a “part 2” to your series! Thanks! David
I have problem with solve in MATLAB 2011. I can run my code in version 2010a without any problem but when I run it in high version I can not and I have warning:The solutions are parametrized by the symbols
Is it possible whats the solution for this problem?