Mathematics Tool Kit

My pleasure. Please take a look at the shiny new Overview page.

In developing the overview material, I realized an additional feature I would like to look into: Python syntax highlighting in MacTex and Kile so users can create their Python and LaTeX source easily from within the same editor. Currently I usually edit my Python on a more code aware editor, but clearly it would be much better to do everything in the MTK environments.

The vision for a CadQuery GUI includes supporting plugins. I could envision rolling everything from MTK into a single plugin for the CQ GUI so that you would have complete end-to-end integration between doing the math and generating the output files for manufacturing.

Hmmm... I had not thought of that. I bet for some power users that would be amazing. Analysis, conceptual design, and CAD all in one place. We would probably also still want to support MTK in a stand alone mode (I think) so math and conceptual design folks could still use it outside of CAD. But, having it all integrated would make it much easier to import MTK projects into CAD projects.

Oh, I also wonder if having document generation (LaTeX) more tightly coupled to CAD would help bootstrap some of the ideas we talked about at Apogee I regarding having a templated and code driven way of producing drawings...

I've been sharing the Overview page in person to show friends and Mach 30 contacts. I showed it to Matt M. (Mach 30 volunteer) while I was on a business trip last week and he liked how it separated the analysis process from the review process from the implementation process. After all, a reviewer does not necessarily need to read all of the Python code, since they will be reviewing the final PDF including explanations, plots, and demonstration runs of the analysis. And the implementor (aka - CAD modeler, or other consumer of the analysis) can focus on the public API of the analysis instead of how it works. I also showed it to Charlie B. (occasional Mach 30 advisor and AFIT PhD Candidate) and Camdon (fellow maker and an AFIT PhD student). Both were super excited. Charlie immediately recommended including Astropy in the MTK distribution to aid with things like orbital calculations. And before the evening was over Camdon said he needed to check out our (not-quite-yet-committed) source code.

The overall consensus was that MTK looks like a very promising tool and fills a niche not currently covered in existing open source tools. :)

The overall consensus was that MTK looks like a very promising tool and fills a niche not currently covered in existing open source tools. :)

That's very exciting feedback. Kudos to you, J for recognizing the need and taking the initiative to get it going.

Thanks!!! I was super excited to get this feedback. Looking forward to getting the first "release" into their hands to get live feedback from them.

Charlie immediately recommended including Astropy in the MTK distribution to aid with things like orbital calculations.

I forgot to ask about this tonight at the Hangout. Are we planning to integrate Astrophy in this iteration?

I think we should focus on the minimal viable product for this release. To me that means capturing other potential libraries to include (like Astropy), but only including the ones we absolutely need for doing essential calculations (like units from Pint) and correct formatting (like Minted for code display and setting up our own document class to set up the MTK environment). To address the capturing potential libraries to include I have setup a section on the Resources wiki page (Packages to Research). Feel free to drop in other things you hear about or think of.

Sounds good, thanks for setting that page up.