Samir Khan
Mathematical Software Specialist

It might be a power maths application, but it’s in engineering where Maple is being most enthusiastically employed. Here’s why.

Maple 9 is rightly known as offering the best power and usability combination of any mathematics application for PCs. But although a huge number of professional mathematicians are enthusiastic users, Maple has an even larger following in the engineering sector. We’ve been analysing this extensively, and have identified some of the capabilities which we think are making it such a strong tool in design applications.

Firstly, there’s the automatic code generation (which has been greatly enhanced in Maple 9). This allows users to undertake complex model formulation within the efficient, error-free environment of Maple …and then automatically generate optimised source code to a wide range of popular general programming languages, such as C, FORTRAN, Java, MATLAB or BASIC for integration into a larger project. This was used by Canadian designers to build the world’s most ambitious robot - the Space Shuttle arm.

Although Maple is widely known for its symbolic algorithms, recent releases have also delivered what may be industry-leading accuracy and speed in numerical computation. In fact, Maple can compete healthily against general-purpose numerical systems in this respect for most important problem areas, which is an astonishing achievement. This of course is in addition to all of the inherent benefits of Maple’s traditional strength in symbolic (intelligent) computation.

Then there’s the applicability throughout an organisation. Over 4000 functions cover everything from elementary to research-
level topics, all integrated into a single environment. Maple really is an organisation-wide application now, with all the advantages that implies in terms of training, software management and more besides. A look at the applications in the press room on the Maplesoft.com website illustrates this perfectly: take a look at how companies such as Canon, Toyota and Matsushita are using the software.

Allied to this is the choice of environments: whatever the user level, there’s an appropriate interface. Compare the general worksheet approach, the customised environments using Maplets technology, web-based use via MapleNet, Excel-based usage, and more. In engineering applications, this integration with Excel, which is unmatched by less well-featured mathematical applications, is an extremely strong aspect.