ulab is a numpy-like array manipulation library for micropython and CircuitPython.
The module is written in C, defines compact containers for numerical
data, and is fast. The library is a software-only standard micropython user module,
i.e., it has no hardware dependencies, and can be compiled for any platform.
The float implementation of micropython (float, or double) is automatically detected.
ulab implements numpy's ndarray with the ==, !=, <, <=, >, >=, +, -, /, *, and ** binary operators, and the len, ~, -, +, abs unary operators that operate element-wise. Type-aware ndarrays can be initialised from any micropython iterable, lists of iterables, or by means of the ones, zeros, eye, or linspace functions.
ndarrays can be iterated on, and have a number of their own methods, such as shape, reshape, transpose, size, and itemsize.
In addition to the ndarray's operators and methods, seven modules define a great number of functions that can take ndarrays or micropython iterables as their arguments. If flash space is a concern, unnecessary sub-modules can be excluded from the compiled firmware with a pre-processor switch.
The vector sub-module implements all functions of the math package (e.g., acos, acosh, ..., tan, tanh) of micropython for ndarrays and iterables.
The numerical sub-module defines the roll, flip, diff, sort and argsort functions for ndarrays, and, in addition, the min, max, argmin, argmax, sum, mean, std functions that work with ndarrays, as well as generic one-dimensional iterables.
The linalg sub-module implements functions for matrix inversion, dot product, and the calculation of the determinant, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, Cholesky decomposition, and trace.
The poly sub-module defines the polyval, and polyfit functions from numpy.
The fft sub-module implements the fast Fourier transform, and its inverse for one-dimensional ndarrays.
The filter sub-module implements one-dimensional convolution.
The compare sub-module contains the implementation of the minimum, maximum, and clip functions.
The extras sub-module is meant as a user-extendable module, and currently implements the spectrogram function of scipy.
Documentation can be found on readthedocs under micropython-ulab, as well as at circuitpython-ulab. A number of practical examples are listed in the excellent circuitpython-ulab overview.
Firmware for pyboard.v.1.1, and PYBD_SF6 is released once in a while, and can be downloaded
from https://github.com/v923z/micropython-ulab/releases. Since a number of features can be
set in the firmware (threading, support for SD card, LEDs, user switch etc.), and it is
impossible to create something that suits everyone, these releases should only be used for
quick testing of ulab. Otherwise, compilation from the source is required with
the appropriate settings, which are usually defined in the mpconfigboard.h file of the port
in question.
ulab is also included in most development builds of CircuitPython for SAMD51 and nRF microcontrollers.
If you want to try the latest version of ulab on micropython, or your hardware is
different to pyboard.v.1.1, or PYBD_SF6, the firmware can be compiled
from the source by following these steps:
First, you have to clone the micropython repository by running
git clone https://github.com/micropython/micropython.git
on the command line. This will create a new repository with the name micropython. Staying there, clone the ulab repository with
git clone https://github.com/v923z/micropython-ulab.git ulab
If you don't have the cross-compiler installed, your might want to do that now, for instance on Linux by executing
sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi
If this step was successful, you can try to run the make command in the port's directory as
make BOARD=PYBV11 USER_C_MODULES=../../../ulab all
which will prepare the firmware for pyboard.v.11. Similarly,
make BOARD=PYBD_SF6 USER_C_MODULES=../../../ulab all
will compile for the SF6 member of the PYBD series. If your target is unix, you don't need to specify the BOARD parameter.
Provided that you managed to compile the firmware, you would upload that by running either
dfu-util --alt 0 -D firmware.dfu
or
python pydfu.py -u firmware.dfu
In case you got stuck somewhere in the process, a bit more detailed instructions can be found under https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki/Getting-Started, and https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki/Pyboard-Firmware-Update.