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The Math foundation classes form the backbone of the foundation classes
and provide support for general

<a href="./scalar/index.html">scalar</a>,
<a href="./vector/index.html">vector</a>,

and

<a href="./matrix/index.html">matrix</a>

mathematics. These classes are designed to provide high-level
interfaces to most linear algebra operations, yet are designed to be
computationally efficient.  For each category (e.g., vector), we
provide a template (e.g., MVector), that implements all operations
common to all classes in that category.  We then proceed to implement
specific types of vectors (e.g. VectorFloat), that contain selected
specializations.

<br><br>

The

<a href="./scalar/index.html">scalar</a>

classes mirror the design of our

<a href="/perl/ifc_document.pl?file=$isip/class/system/Integral/IntegralTypes.h">IntegralTypes</a>

and provide C++ classes that implement each integral type.
The vector and matrix classes then build on these and provide
the associated data structures for each scalar.
The principal use for these classes should be the implementation
of mathematical operations.
The

<a href="../dstr/index.html">data structures</a>

library also contains implementations of vectors and other such things
that are intended to be general containers for those applications
needing math-like data structures, but not the corresponding mathematical
operations.

<br><br>

In addition to mirroring the types of classes in each category
(i.e., Float, VectorFloat, MatrixFloat), we also provide common
sets of functions across all categories. This degree
of uniformity makes it easier to understand how to use these classes,
and makes it straightforward to move between vector and matrix
representations. We also abstract the user from many details of
C programming with vectors, including efficient memory allocation
(implemented through a centralized memory manager), automatic
type conversions, and mixed-type mathematics (adding a constant to
a vector, multiplying a vector by a matrix). Programming with
the Math foundation classes is mainly procedural, looks similar
to MATLAB or other such abstract languages, and yet provides the runtime
efficiency of a compiled language.

<br><br>

There are three types of math classes:

<center>
<table border=5>
<tr>
<td><center><a href="./scalar/index.html">math/scalar</a><center></td>
<td><center><a href="./vector/index.html">math/vector</a><center></td>
<td><center><a href="./matrix/index.html">math/matrix</a><center></td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>

<br>

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