Scipy contains a good least-squares fitting routine, leastsq(), which implements a modified Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. I just learned that it also has a constrained least-squared routine called fmin_slsqp(). I am using simple upper and lower bound constraints, but it’s also possible to specify more complex functional constraints. What I did not realize, at first, is that […]
Constrained least-squares fitting with Python Read More »
In my last post, I explained why I don’t think the ETC Element is a good replacement for the ETC Express. When I was at LDI 2009, I ran across the Rendition series of consoles from Lehigh Lighting. Based on the literature I picked up, and the extensive demonstration that I received from the
A preliminary review of the Lehigh Rendition console Read More »
In a previous post, I described how Python’s Pickle module is fast and convenient for storing all sorts of data on disk. More recently, I showed how to profile the memory usage of Python code. In recent weeks, I’ve uncovered a serious limitation in the Pickle module when storing large amounts of data: Pickle requires
Storing large Numpy arrays on disk: Python Pickle vs. HDF5 Read More »
Head over to Technologies for Worship Magazine and check out my recently-published article about backlighting. It’s my first publication in print (outside of technical journals). I’m looking forward to writing more articles for a general audience!
My article published in Technologies for Worship Magazine Read More »
We recently got an ETC Element to replace an ETC Express 72/144 that had become unreliable due to a hardware problem. I’d like to point out that ETC equipment is generally very durable, but this particular console only lasted about 8 years due to abuse by the high-school students who use the console during the
First impression: ETC Element Console Review Read More »
I attended LDI (Live Design International) last Friday in Orlando, FL. This was my second time at the show (read my report from 2007). Overall, I’d say this year’s show was scaled back from 2007, which is not surprising considering how the economic recession has affected the entertainment industry. There were fewer booths this year,
I’m using GNU Fortran (gfortran) to build several shared libraries, and then dynamically linking to them from a Fortran program. The process is a little different than what I’m used to for C libraries, so I thought I’d explain it. Unlike C, there is no need to #include header files when compiling code that relies
Building and linking to a shared Fortran library Read More »
Here is an xorg.conf for a Gentoo guest running in VMWare Fusion on MacOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard). It’s surprisingly simple to set up X when the hardware is fake 😉 Gentoo runs great on a Macbook Pro 13″. I was concerned at first about the lack of 3D acceleration, but I tried a few 3D
X.org configuration for a Gentoo guest on VMWare Fusion Read More »
I recently installed Gentoo Linux (amd64) as a guest on my Mac (OS 10.6 Snow Leopard) using VMWare Fusion. I thought I’d post the kernel config that I am using, since I didn’t find any out there that I trusted. If you can use this as a starting point, then it should save you some
Kernel configuration for a Gentoo guest in VMWare Fusion Read More »
I have recently started using f2py to call Fortran from Python. I have found this useful for two reasons: speeding up Python scripts by calling compiled Fortran code, and using Python as a unit testing framework for Fortran modules. Unfortunately, the documentation for f2py is rather sparse, and may not be completely up to date.
f2py: binding Fortran and Python Read More »