Changes between Version 1 and Version 2 of SoC2013

Timestamp:

Feb 19, 2013, 11:08:21 AM (10 years ago)

Author:

David Bellot

Comment:

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SoC2013

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 Projects from previous years can be found [wiki:SoCPrevious here]. There are still a number of interesting projects found in these pages.
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+=== Boost.uBLAS === 
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+First of all, we have a page with the list of future and desired new features here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ublas/index.php?title=Main_Page. Students are encourage to consult this page.
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+Boost.uBLAS is a fast implementation of linear algebra procedures, of for short it's a vector and matrix library. Actually it's indeed a vector AND matrix library and this is one of the main problem. Vectors are matrices, at least in standard math textbook, but not in Boost.uBLAS. They are represented as 2 separate classes and do not share code really. Not enough to be efficient. Moreover, vector being considered as fixed-sized vectors, they are not as versatile as STL vectors (but it's not the same concept) and not as accurate as a true linear algebra vector, that is they do not implement the notion of being row-vector or column-vector.
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+Said like that, it's not that important you would say, but by merging vector and matrix classes, we could share a lot of code and optimize even further. Second of all, by having a unified architecture we could start implementing modern acceleration techniques that lacks in Boost.uBLAS, like SIMD computations, multi-core, GPU, etc...
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+Our ideas for a GSOC project are the following:
+- unify representation of vector and matrices into a unique matrix class. Keep compatibility with previous code by providing a default vector<> representation that would inherit for matrix<>. Improve it too by adding more template parameters like size and orientation.
+- use this new architecture to propose implementation for the following:
+   - fixed-sized vectors and matrices with optimization
+   - a true * operator for vector/vector, vector/matrix and matrix/matrix multiplication
+   - an architecture to choose at compile time the best algorithm to apply if several are available (very relevant to multiplication for example),
+   - ideas and examples on how to implement SIMD and multicore operations.
+
+Inspiration from other libraries like Eigen, Armadillo, GotoBLAS, etc... is highly recommended (after all, that's one of the raison d'etre of Free Software).
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+Mentor: David Bellot (david.bellot[at]gmail.com)