×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Math Software

Math Software

Math Software

(OP)
Question:

I am thinking of up-grading to TK Solver 5.0.  However, I have always been interested in other packages- MathCAD for instance.

I have to do design reports and TK has always done the job but the cut and paste headaches of putting the information into Word have always taken the fun out of the job.

Has anyone ever used TK and other packages?  Which would do you find most helpful? TK has the "back calculation" function that they claim no else has - can anyone verify?

Any information would be appreciated?

jackboot

RE: Math Software

The great thing about Mathcad is that you no longer need to go back into Word, typical engineering calculations can be fully annotated and rendered into a presentable form inside Mathcad.

I wouldn't want to write a real report in Mathcad, but I bet someone has.

I never got on with TK so I can't comment on it, but have heard that it has features that the other packages lack.

Others you might look at

Mathematica: more of a learning cliff than a learning curve. I don't know if it can be used to create reports, but the chances of finding anyone else who can read the equations is fairly slim, outside of mathematicians. (and inside a mathematician it's too dark to read equations).

Matlab: fast powerful ugly

Scilab, octave, R: 3 freeware alternatives to Matlab, with slightly different emphases. I have seen some neat (as in tidy) reports in Scilab, but I think it takes a fair amount of effort to get there.

OK, I admit it, I'm a Mathcad fanboy.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Math Software

TKSolver's back calculation approach is probably the simplest, but a backsolver is essentially similar to the Solve functionality of Excel or the Given-Find functionality in Mathcad.

In Mathcad, the basic approach is:
>  Define guess values and constants
>  Define constraints (This is the Given part)
>  Define variables allowed to change (This is the Find part, which also outputs the values of the variables that allow all the constraints to be met.)

Excel's is similar in nature

TTFN

RE: Math Software

To Greg Locock's list, I would add "DERIVE", particularly if you are interested in stand-alone symbolic processing in algebra and calculus.

I have been using DERIVE for over a decade, starting with its DOS versions, and it very rapidly became an indispensible tool in my mathematical armoury.  The program was developed by Soft Warehouse (sic) of Honolulu, but has relatively recently been taken over by Texas Instruments.  Unfortunately I am still using version 4, the last produced by Soft Warehouse, because Texas Instruments (or, at least, their Australian agents) refused to recognise version 4 as the basis for a reduced price upgrade to version 5 (TI's first version).

See
http://education.ti.com/us/product/software/derive/features/features.html
for some information on the latest version of DERIVE.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources