# Ruby equivalents to SciPy, NumPy

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-equivalents-to-scipy-numpy/183447>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 14, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-equivalents-to-scipy-numpy/183447 "2010-02-14T13:51:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alexander\_j](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@alexander\_j](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alexander_j)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-equivalents-to-scipy-numpy/183447/1 "2010-02-14T13:51:31Z")

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Hello!

I want to use Ruby to do some scientific computing for university and  
was wondering, if there are any gems or language intern features that  
could help me to accomplish this tasks.

Some of my colleagues use Python and they can use NumPy or orther SciPy  
features to do computations and produce graphic output just like in  
MATLAB.  
Are there any equivalents for Ruby?

Regards,  
Alex

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alexander\_j](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@alexander\_j](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alexander_j)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-equivalents-to-scipy-numpy/183447/2 "2010-02-14T14:37:45Z")

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Alexander J. wrote:

> 

Hi Alexander,  
I have quite good experience with the bindings to Gnu Scientific Library  
(GSL: [GNU Scientific Library — GSL 2.7 documentation](http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/), rb-gsl:  
[http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/](http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/)). there is also another bindings package:  
[http://ruby-gsl.sourceforge.net/](http://ruby-gsl.sourceforge.net/)

As you may know, narray ([http://narray.rubyforge.org/SPEC.en](http://narray.rubyforge.org/SPEC.en)) is a fast  
multidimensional array implementation, and it is interoperable with  
rb-gsl ([http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/narray.html](http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/narray.html)). If you install  
‘plotutils’ and ‘gnuplot’ (+ its ruby gem), you will be able to use  
GSL’s plotting facilities ([http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/vector.html#3.17](http://rb-gsl.rubyforge.org/vector.html#3.17),  
graph → plotutils, plot → gnuplot). After all, it felt like using  
matlab to me. Having a ruby as a fully features language by your side  
makes it even more powerfull.

If you’re looking for statistical analysis, rsruby  
([http://rubyforge.org/projects/rsruby/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rsruby/)), ruby bindings to R.

Another important issue is IO. If you have CSV-like files, GSL can read  
the directly, or you can let ruby to that. If you have netcdf  
([Unidata | NetCDF](http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/),  
[RubyNetCDF -- Ruby interface to NetCDF](http://ruby.gfd-dennou.org/products/ruby-netcdf/)) , grib  
([http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-grib/](http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-grib/)) or hdf5  
([http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/](http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/)), you have to look for libraries.

best regards  
ralf