Computational Physics Resources
Updated 6/20/2003

Please note that some links could be put in many different categories. I'm doing the best I can...

• Computational Science Education Project by the US Dept of Energy.
  From the main web page, "CSEP is an electronic book for teaching Computational Science and Engineering. The intended audience is students in science and engineering at the advanced undergraduate level and higher. Tutorials for freely available networking and visualization software are included and have attracted a range of users, including high-school students and people from the commercial sector."
  Good survey of methods including Monte Carlo, ODE's, PDE's, optimization, and random number generation. Links to code sources.

• National Center for Computational Electronics offers online tutorials on monte carlo methods, band structure calculations, and applications of the Boltzmann equation and Schrodinger equation to the study of electronic properites of materials. ( Hardcore )

• Scientific Computing FAQ
  A summary of Internet-related resources for a handful of fields related to Scientific Computing, primarily:
  • scientific and engineering numerical computing
  • numerical analysis
  • symbolic algebra
  • statistics
  • operations research
  Including neural networks, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, particle simulation, and nonlinear dynamics.

• Search the sci.math.num-analysis archive.

• Numerical Analysis Section of the Math Forum @ Drexel contains links to many sites on numerical techniques.

• WWW Math Virtual Library - Numerical Analysis Page

• Programming Texts and Tutorials Not numerical analysis, but it has a lot of useful tutorials on computer tools, especially those for Unix/Linux. (personal list of S Baum who has an intriguing collection of additional links)

• Penn State University Physical Sciences Library Searchable Journal List contains a list of the journals carried by the Physical Sciences Library and hotlinks to journals available electronically.

• LANL E-Print Archive is also available through a Form interface and both interfaces allow searching.

• PhysDoc - Physics Documents Worldwide. (preprints, research reports, etc)

• Numerical Recipes by Press, Teukolsky, Vetterling, and Flannery. (Cambridge Press. Versions are available for C and Fortran.) Very useful text on numerical analysis with code. Although it does a good job of explaining the mathematics of each technique and offers advice on which methods are most appropriate, it is basically a cookbook for numerical techniques. Want to make an Alfredo sauce for your pasta? Just look it up and don't worry about the theory behind it! (Not the final word on code efficiency, but a good place to start. A truly excellent resource.) The books are now available online.

• NETLIB
  From the NETLIB FAQ, "The Netlib repository contains freely available software, documents, and databases of interest to the numerical, scientific computing, and other communities. The repository is maintained by AT&T Bell Laboratories, the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and by colleagues world-wide."

• NIST Guide to Available Mathematical Software (GAMS) - a nice interface into many sources (including NETLIB).

• GNU Scientific Library -- "a collection of numerical routines for scientific computing". (It looks like a well-considered and Very complete set of routines.) There is an excellent online Reference Manual which reads like a book on numerical methods.

• Random Number Generators

• Python.org Python is rapidly becoming popular for scientific applications. It is interpreted, but it is fast to learn and fairly quick to use.

• Python Tutorial by Guido van Rossum.

• Python Reference Library

• Visual Python Adds real-time 3d visualization to python without the user having to do any graphics programming.

• Numerical Python

• SciPy - Scientific tools for Python

• Python TidBits Small python scripts that do something useful. Good way to learn something new

• Astronomical Python Homepage

• Scientific Applications on Linux - Awesome organized list of packages and software for all areas of scientific work. Intended for Linux, but the software is usable on any Unix system and many are available for Windows. The database's 3000+ entries are organized by catagory and the database is searchable. (6/20/2004 Some of the sites in this project have disappeared and it may no longer be up to date.)

• Mathtools.net

• Waterloo Maple
  • Maple Application Center

• Wolfram Research produces Mathematica and has a Resource Library.

• MuPAD .

• Mathworks MATLAB
  
  • Tutorials for Matlab
    
  • Matlab Central
    Links to comp.soft-sys.matlab and the Matlab central file exchange with hundreds of files contributed by Matlab users.
    
  • comp.soft-sys.matlab archive comp.soft-sys.matlab is a USENET newsgroup for MATLAB, Simulink, Stateflow, Real-Time Workshop,and related products. It is read by thousands of users world-wide, including The MathWorks, Inc. Development and Technical Support Departments. Search comp.soft-sys.matlab archives
    
  • Mathtools.net MATLAB The Mathtools.net site is operated by Mathworks, makers of Matlab, so you'd expect a sizable collection of Matlab programs.
    
  • FEMLAB - Multiphysics modeling with Matlab. A simultion package that solves coupled PDE's using finite elements in multiple dimensions. The package has predefined systems of equations for physics and engineering (heat and electrical conduction, electromagnetic waves, structural dynamics, fluids, ...). There are some nice demos including some interactive ones.

• Plotting
  • Gnuplot
    • Bernhard Reiter's Gnuplot - Scientific Plotting page.
      
    • Gnuplot FAQ
      
    • Demo files and plots illustrating many of the features and capabilities of Gnuplot.
      

  • Grace , a descendent of xmgr.

• Drawing
  • XFIG - Drawing Program for the X Window System.

• Image Display and Conversion
  • ImageMagick - image display and conversion, simple image processing and manipulation. Standalone programs as well as libraries callable from C, C++, and PERL. Wonderful!

  • One of the most widely used image display programs is xv . An overview and tutorial are available from DOE on the Oak Ridge National Lab website.

• Scientific Visualization (and Image Processing)
  • Interactive Data Language (IDL) by Research Systems is more than just a visualization package because it contains programming and analysis functions.
    
    • Research Systems maintains a list of pointers to IDL code libraries and archives .
      
    • David Fanning maintains a lengthy list of IDL Resources.
      
    • The Google comp.lang.idl-pvwage archive is up to date and an excellent way to tap into the IDL experience of experts!
      
    • comp.lang.idl-pvwave Newsgroup archive. Nice method of grouping topics and archiving specific IDL programs. This site's newsgroup updates ceased in 2001.
      
    • The Univ of Washington, Astronomy Dept has a large Searchable index of IDL procedures .
      
    • Research Systems has a technical FAQ as well as a searchable archive of Technical Tips .
      
    • The official public FAQ . Contains useful tips and links, but it does not appear to be up to date..
      
    
    

  • Khoros by Khoral Research , a high-end scientific visualization and image processing package, is now called VisiQuest and is available from Accusoft .

  • OpenDX -- A full-featured open-source scientific visualization package based on IBM's Visualization Data Explorer. (supported by IBM)
    • DX tutorial at Dalhousie University, Canada
    • DX User's Group at PSU and Mailing List
      
    • Data Explorer Repository (now OpenDX) at Univ of Montana.
      
    • The Cornell Theory Center's Data Explorer Repository has samples, tutorials, and OpenDX extensions.
      
    • Open DX page at IBM Research . This page has links for the Data Explorer mailing list archives as well as the original IBM Data Explorer documentation (which was excellent).
      
    • The STARLINK Project provides tools and resources to reduce and analyse astronomical data, and work on some types of theory. "IBM DX (Data Explorer) is the data visualisation package recommended by Starlink, particularly for the visualisation of three-dimensional scalar and vector data." They offer OpenDX enhancements for Astronomy (SX).

• Routines (for your own software)
  • NCAR Graphics

  • The Visualization Toolkit

  • GNU Plotutils package - programs for two-dimensional scientific data. Package includes GNU libplot which is the underlying C function library for 2d vector graphics. libplot is capable of adding sophisticated device-independent graphics to C programs and handles buffered animation.

• Other Resources
  • UM Supercomputing Institute Scientific Visualization

  • MPEG Information
    • Technical Details on the various MPEG standards are available at The MPEG Committee Homepage

    • A lengthy list of encoders and decoders for many operating systems is available on the Compression FAQ . Note that MPEG is not necessarily easy to create, but the easiest encoding interface is through ImageMagick .

  • Graphics FAQs on many topics: animation, gnuplot, opengl, raytracing, and others.

  • Software for Graphics and Data Analysis a list of packages with editorial comments about their strengths. (personal list of S Baum who has an intriguing collection of additional links)

• LASSPTools Graphical and numerical extensions to Unix.
  Tools for graphics and animation, analog input devices, numerical analysis, data filtering, and miscellaneous ultilities. Check out the PlotAtoms code!

• DOE's Argonne National laboratory Mathematics and Computer Science Division produces many software products.
  Lots of packages including Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific computation (PETSc), MPI, Fast Ocean-Atmosphere Model (FOAM). Especially strong collection of parallel processing and logic/reasoning packages.

• The Art of Molecular Dynamics Simulation by DC Rapaport (Cambridge Univ Press). Software described in the book is available for free download.

• High Energy Physics
  
  • CERNLIB
  • EPICS
  • FreeHEP
  • FermiTools
• Astronomy
  
  • Astronomical Matlab scripts
    
  • Statistical Software for astronomy and other fields (from Penn State)
    
  • Matlab Astronomy Library
    
  • NEMO - A Stellar Dynamics Toolbox
    The same site also lists other software for N-body pariticle simulations.
  • Interactive Data Language (IDL) Resources
    
    • Searchable index of all IDL Astronomy Library procedures
      
  • The STARLINK Project provides tools and resources to reduce and analyse astronomical data, and work on some types of theory. The SOFTWARE part of their menu is extensive. In addition,
    
    • Links page to Libraries of Astronomy IDL Routines
      
    • STARLink Guide to Visualization Software
      
    • An Introduction to Visualisation Software for Astronomy
      
• Condensed Matter Physics
  
  • VASP Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package is a package for ab-initio quantum-mechanical molecular dynamics with pseudopotentials and a plane wave basis set. It allows you to model the interactions between electrons and ions in a solid.

  • NCSA Software - Quantum Simulations of Condensed Matter Systems
    Software packages for the simulation of condensed matter systems including:
    
    • CLAMPS CLassical Many-Particle Simulator (Documentation).
      
    • DataSpork Tool for statistical analysis of simulation data.
      
  • Software from the NSF Materials Computation Center at UIUC.
    
• GeoPhysics
  
  • Ocean Circulation Modeling Projects some with software. (personal list of S Baum who has an intriguing collection of links)

  • NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM) a freely available global atmosphere model for use by the wider climate research community. Different components model the atmosphere, land surface, ocean, and sea ice.

  • MM5 (NCAR/Penn State Mesoscale Model) terrain-following atmospheric circulation model.

• Electronics
  
  • Spice (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) one of the most widely used programs for analog circuit simulation and analysis. There are numerous commercial spice simulators derived from the original Berkeley code and one rewriten GPL version, NG-Spice .

  • XCircuit is for drawing publishable-quality electrical circuit schematic diagrams. (It is extensible and can be used for other symbolic drawing such as music.)

• Computational Fluid Dynamics
  
  • CFD Resources Online
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics Software from NASA In particular,
    
    • FAST - Flow Analysis Software Toolkit
      
    • INS2D and INS3D which solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations 2d or 3d generalized coordinates for steady-state and time varying flow.

• The Beowulf Project - parallel supercomputers.
  Site includes documentation, software, drivers, and information on constructing a Beowulf class machine. Also links to many Beowulf machines.

• Engineering a Beowulf-style Compute Cluster online `howto' book by Rob Brown who built and maintains the Brahma parallel Beowulf supercomputer at the Duke University Phyics Dept. (He also runs a personal beowulf at home and this book describes how to build them expensive or cheap!

• Applying for High-Performance Computing Resources at National Computation Science Alliance (Alliance)

• National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI)
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) offers grants for research or coursework.

• Penn State University's Numerically Intensive Computing Group which operates the IBM RS/6000 Scalable POWERparallel System (SP) which has 125 physical nodes with 301 RISC processor CPU and the LION-X Beowulf cluster. The NIC group also offers parallel processing tools, numerical libraries, finite element sovers, and other software packages.

• Dilbert

• Sherman's Lagoon

• Essentia l LaTeX

• LaTex Navigator a LaTeX encyclopedia.

• The TeX Catalogue Online A searchable listing of TeX and LaTeX related material including style files and font definitions.