Is it possible to call Matlab from QtCreator? - c++

I am doing image analysis using C++ in the QtCreator environment. In order to build a learning model, I want to use the TreeBagger class from MATLAB, which is really powerful. Can I call MATLAB from QtCreator, give it some parameters, and get back the classification error? Can I do this without using mex files?

From QProcess's Synchronous Process API example:
QProcess gzip;
gzip.start("gzip", QStringList() << "-c");
if (!gzip.waitForStarted())
return false;
gzip.write("Qt rocks!");
gzip.closeWriteChannel();
if (!gzip.waitForFinished())
return false;
QByteArray result = gzip.readAll();
The concept to from this example is the process of being able to execute matlab w/ whatever settings that would be preferable and begin writing a script to it immediately. After the write; you can close the channel, wait for response, then read the results from matlab. Uunfortunately, I'm not experienced w/ it to provide a more direct example, but this is the concept for the most case. Please research the documentation for anything else.

Matlab has an "engine" interface described here to let standalone programs call matlab functions. It has the advantage that you can call engPutVariableand engGetVariable to transfer your data in binary format (I think it works by using shared memory between your process and matlab, but I'm not sure on this), so you don't have to convert your data to ascii and parse the result from ascii.
For c++ you might want to write a wrapper class for RAII or have a look at http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/4216/MATLAB-Engine-API, where this has already been done.

Related

Plot values in .m file from C++

I have looked extensively in the net, yet not found exactly what I want.
I have a big simulation program that outputs results in a MATLAB M-file (let's call it res.m) and I want to plot the results visually.
I want to start the simulation with C++ many times in a row and therefore want to automatize the plotting of the results.
I come up to two options:
Execute from C++ an Octave or MATLAB script that generates the graph.
-> Haven't found anyone who managed to do so
Use the Octave source files to read the res.m file and output them after with whatever plotting C++ tool.
-> Theoretically possible but I get lost in those files
Is someone able to solve this? Or has a better, easier approach?
The answer is to execute through the terminal.
I didn't manage to actually run a octave script from my c++ program directly, but there is a way around messing with/through the terminal and a extra Octave file. I used in my cpp:
string = "octave myProgr.m"
const char *command = str.c_str();
system(command);
myProgr.m is the script that plots the res.m file

QProcess Multiplatform command

I need to launch some script using QProcess.
For this, under windows, I use QProcess::execute("cmd [...]");.
However, this won't work if I go under some other OS such as Linux.
So, I was wondering if the best solution to make that code portable, would be to interfere with a mutliplatform scripting solution, such as TCL for exemple.
So I use : QProcess:execute("tclsh text.tcl"); and it works.
But, I got three questions concerning that problem. Because I'm not sure of what I've done.
Will execute() execute tclsh with the file test.tcl both under Windows and Linux wherever I execute it ? It seems to do so, but I want to be sure ! Is there any bad scenario that can happen ?
Is this a good solution ? I know lots of people have way more experience than I do, and I'd be grateful for anything I could learn !
Why not using std::system() ? Is it less portable ?
While this isn't a total answer, I can point out a few things.
In particular, tclsh is quite happy under Windows; it's a major supported platform. The main problem that could happen in practice is if you pass a filename with a space in it (this is distinctly more likely under Windows than on a Unix due to differences in community practice). However, the execute() as you have written it has no problems. Well, as long as tclsh is located on the PATH.
The other main option for integrating Tcl script execution with Qt is to link your program against the Tcl binary library and use that. Tcl's API is aimed at C, so it should be pretty simple to use from C++ (if a little clunky from a C++ perspective):
// This holds the description of the API
#include "tcl.h"
// Initialize the Tcl library; *call only once*
Tcl_FindExecutable(NULL);
// Make an evaluation context
Tcl_Interp *interp = Tcl_CreateInterp();
// Execute a script loaded from a file (or whatever)
int resultCode = Tcl_Eval(interp, "source test.tcl");
// Check if an error happened and print the error if it did
if (resultCode == TCL_ERROR) {
std::cerr << "ERROR: " << Tcl_GetString(Tcl_GetObjResult(interp)) << std::endl;
}
// Squelch the evaluation context
Tcl_DeleteInterp(interp);
I'm not a particularly great C++ coder, but this should give the idea. I have no idea about QProcess::execute() vs std::system().
A weak point of your solution is that on windows you'll have to install tclsh. There is no tclsh on Solaris either. May be somewhere else.
Compared to std::system(), QProcess gives you more control and information about the process of executing your command. If all you need is just to execute script (without receiving the output, for example) - std::system() is a good choice.
What I've used in a similar situation:
#ifdef Q_OS_WIN
mCommand = QString("cmd /C %1 %2").arg(command).arg(args);
#else
mCommand = QString("bash %1 %2").arg(command).arg(args);
#endif

c++ software passing arguments method

I have a problem related to passing arguments to a C++ compiled executable. The program emulate the behaviour of a particular inference engine: the setup of the engine is load at runtime from an XML file, and then I want to call it from command line with different input values.
The characteristic of the input are:
Every time that I call the program, the input structure is different, because the system itself is different.
The input is a set of couple {name, value}, one for each part of the system.
I have to separate the configuration XML from the input.
I call the program from a PHP or Node.js server, since it return a result that I expose to the outside through an API.
Input value are obtained from an HTTP post request.
By now I have tried these solutions:
Pass it from the command line ex: "./mysoftware input1 value1 input2 value2 ...etc". A little unconfortable, since I have up to 200 input.
Create a file with all the couples name,value and then call the program that parse the file and then destroy at the end. This is a bottleneck of performance for my API, because at every call I have to create and destruct a file.
Does anyone know a better way to approach this problem?
3. Pass the values to the program via the standard input stream and read them from std::cin inside your C++ program.

Octave plot from Qt C++ application

I have a QT C++ application that runs the Octave program using QProcess. I am able to communicate with it by reading the standard output/error and writing to it's standard input using write method (for example: octave->write("5 + 5\n");).
As I told you I get response from octave (from the above example I get "ans = 10").
However, when the command I write to Octave standard input has a "plot" (for example, a simple plot([1 2 3 4 5]);), the actual graphic is never shown. I know Octave runs gnuplot, I have it installed, and gnuplot_x11 too. I even change the gnuplot binary path in my Octave process by executing gnuplot_binary("/usr/bin/gnuplot"); from MY APPLICATION. I know it runs good because if I retrieve the new value I get it right. But I don't know why Octave doesn't show the graphic.
Here I start octave:
QStringList arguments;
arguments << "--persist";
octave->setProcessChannelMode(QProcess::MergedChannels);
octave->start("/usr/bin/octave", arguments);
Here I write commands to octave process:
if (octave->state() == QProcess::Running) {
QString command = widget.txtInput->toPlainText();
if (command.isEmpty()) {
return;
}
command += "\n";
octave->write(command.toAscii());
}
With this I print the octave response to a text edit:
widget.txtOutput->append(octave->readAll() + "\n");
And finally, I use this when the octave process starts:
QString gnuplot_path(tr("\"/usr/bin/gnuplot\""));
QString gnuplot_cmd(tr("gnuplot_binary(%1)\n").arg(gnuplot_path));
octave->write(gnuplot_cmd.toAscii());
I will appreciate any help you could give me.
Thanks in advance.
Octave, like Matlab, can be run in batch mode to perform computations without graphical UI. I assume that Octave detects that it is not run from an interactive session, and therefore automatically goes into batch mode. You would expect Octave to suppress graphical output (e.g. gnuplot output) when being in batch mode.
Try to force Octave into interactive mode by using the --interactive command line option:
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Command-Line-Options.html
I know you probably already solved your problem but this might be helpful for other...
You can try to add a command to save your plot in a temporary folder in your octave request.
Then display the graph in your ap

Is there a TeX API for C++?

I want to preview TeX formulas in my User Interface. After a long time searching, it seems to me that there is no other possibility than
write the formula into a .tex file
call tex with system() and write a dvi file
call e.g. dvipng with system() and write a png file
load this file into the GUI
clean up(erase all these files).
I think that the performance of this way doing it is not a problem, since there are only formulas to render and not whole documents. But setting up the environment automatically for the TeX system seems to be a bigger problem.
So, is there a possibility to include TeX as an API in my program?
Thanks a lot!
Couldn't you encapsulate those steps in a single shell script (i.e. which takes the formula and png filename as arguments)? The script could then also handle setting up the environment for TeX. Your program just calls the script with the system() call.
There's a C API for TeX called MimeTeX but the resulting image is... not a nice as it could be.
If you're OK with Java, there's JLatexMath
And if you'd like a WPF version, one is under development at WPFMath
I'm not sure, but think MathType's Component will overkill.
Also have a look at sideshare and see flash video to get more information about sitmo, mathMagig, Edoboard and their API tools.
good lucks.
For Edoboard and Tutorsbox.com we do the following:
Keep a blacklist of LaTeX commands to avoid:
TEX_BLACKLIST = ["\\def", "\\let", "\\futurelet",
"\\newcommand", "\\renewcommand", "\\else", "\\fi", "\\write",
"\\input", "\\include", "\\chardef", "\\catcode", "\\makeatletter",
"\\noexpand", "\\toksdef", "\\every", "\\errhelp", "\\errorstopmode",
"\\scrollmode", "\\nonstopmode", "\\batchmode", "\\read", "\\csname",
"\\newhelp", "\\relax", "\\afterground", "\\afterassignment",
"\\expandafter", "\\noexpand", "\\special", "\\command", "\\loop",
"\\repeat", "\\toks", "\\output", "\\line", "\\mathcode", "\\name",
"\\item", "\\section", "\\mbox", "\\DeclareRobustCommand", "\\[", "\\]"];
We then do system call "latex and textopng".
That as an API REST plus some caching and here you go :)
As an upgrade we will soon convert those LaTeX images as SVG.
LyX is a TeX based Document Processor. As the application is open source you can inspect the C++ code to see how they deal with the problem you described.