Sparse Finite-Element Matrices in MATLAB

I’m pleased to introduce Tim Davis as this week’s guest blogger. Tim is a professor at the University of Florida, and is the author or co-author of many of our sparse matrix functions (lu, chol, much of sparse backslash, ordering methods such as amd and colamd, and other functions such as etree and symbfact). He is also the author of a recent book, Direct Methods for Sparse Linear Systems, published by SIAM, where more details of MATLAB sparse matrices are discussed ( http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~davis ).

• MATLAB is Slow? Only If You Use It Incorrectly
• How Not to Create a Finite-Element Matrix
• What’s Wrong with It?
• How MATLAB Stores Sparse Matrices
• A Better Way to Create a Finite-Element Matrix
• Moral: Do Not Abuse A(i,j)=… for Sparse A; Use sparse Instead
• Try a Faster Sparse Function
• When Fast is Not Fast Enough…