Linear algebra on iPhone (python/numpy?) [closed]

Question

This semester, I'm implementing a compressed-sensing algorithm as an iPhone app. To do this, I'll need some good matrix/linear algebra libraries. I'm a little new to both iOS and Python, and am looking for some help at evaluating my options.

I know the iPhone has the Accelerate framework, which includes vecLib, BLAS, and LAPACK, but I'm not familiar with their API's (and they seem fairly confusing).

I've played around with Python/numpy, and I really like how simple it is to use - if I have the choice, I'd prefer to use numpy over Accelerate.

I know it's possible to embed Python, but I have had little luck on my own. I tried to include Enthought's EPD.framework in an XCode project, but didn't get it to work after playing around for an hour or so. I would imagine that compiling numpy would be worse.

As another alternative, could I use Cython (http://cython.org/) to generate C files then call functions from that? I also attempted this, but ran into more issues with including a .so library and calling it. Is there any way to have Cython generate .c and .h files? Would said .c and .h files still depend on numpy?

I've read some stuff about PyInstaller and freeze.py. Could either of those help me here?

Are there any options besides Accelerate or Python+numpy? Is Python+numpy a good option, or will it be hard to compile/build? Is Cython a valid solution?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Take the time to learn the Accelerate commands. If your doing complex math, these are the functions you want to be using. They are much faster, infinitely more likely to continue to be supported and tuned to future hardware, and as well - they use less energy than naive solutions.