---
layout: default
---

**[GNU Octave][1]** is a high-level interpreted language,
primarily intended for numerical computations,
with built-in plotting and visualization capabilities.
Many [Octave Forge packages][2] provide useful extensions for
several scientific and engineering applications.
The GNU Octave language is quite similar to [Matlab][3]
so that most programs are easily portable.

Octave is distributed under the terms of the
[GNU General Public License][4].

[![GNU Octave 4.0.3 - Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0][screen-small]][screen]

[1]: http://www.octave.org
[2]: http://octave.sourceforge.net/packages.php
[3]: https://www.mathworks.com/matlab
[4]: {{ "license.html" | relative_url }}
[screen]: {{ "/img/screenshot-2016.png" | relative_url }}
[screen-small]: {{ "/img/screenshot-2016-small.png" | relative_url }}



---

# [{% octicon rss class:"octicon-rss-octave" %}][Feed] [News]

{% for post in site.posts limit:3 %}
- [{{ post.title }}]({{ post.url | relative_url }})
  ({{ post.date | date: "%b %-d, %Y" }})

  <div class="news-content">
  {{ post.excerpt }}
  </div>
{% endfor %}

[Feed]: {{ "feed.xml" | relative_url }}
[News]: {{ "news.html" | relative_url }}


---

## Some Examples

- Solve systems of equations with linear algebra operations on
  **vectors** and **matrices**:

{% highlight octave %}
b = [4; 9; 2]; % Column vector
A = [ 3 4 5;
      1 3 1;
      3 5 9 ];
x = A \ b     % Solve $Ax = b$ by inverting A
{% endhighlight %}

- Visualize data with **high-level plot commands** in 2D and 3D:

{% highlight octave %}
% Create an evenly-spaced vector from -10 to 10
x = -10:0.1:10;
y = sin(x);     % y is also a vector
plot(x,y);
title("Simple 2-D Plot");
xlabel("x");
ylabel("sin (x)");
{% endhighlight %}

[![Sine plot][plot]][plot]

[plot]: {{ "/img/plot.png" | relative_url }}