This textbook is ideal for MATLAB/Introduction to Programming courses in both Engineering and Computer Science departments. It is also a suitable introduction for beginning programmers. Engineering Computation with MATLAB introduces the power of computing to engineering students who have no programming experience. The book places the fundamental tenets of computer programming into the context of MATLAB, employing hands-on exercises, examples from the engineering industry, and a variety of core tools to increase programming proficiency and capability. With this knowledge, students are prepared to adapt learned concepts to other programming languages.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents 1.1 Background 1.2 History of Computer Architectures 1.2.1 Babbage’s Difference Engine 1.2.2 Colossus 1.2.3 The von Neumann Architecture 1.3 Computing Systems Today 1.3.1 Computer Hardware 1.3.2 Computer Memory 1.3.3 Computer Software 1.3.4 Running a Computer Program 1.4 Running an Interpreted Program 1.5 Problem Solving 2.1 Programming Language Background 2.1.1 Abstraction 2.1.2 Algorithms 2.1.3 Programming Paradigms 2.2 Basic Data Manipulation 2.2.1 Starting and Stopping Matlab 2.2.2 Assigning Values to Variables 2.2.3 Data Typing 2.2.4 Classes and Objects 2.3 the Matlab User Interface 2.3.1 the Interactions Window 2.3.2 the Command History 2.3.3 the Variables Window 2.3.4 the Files Window 2.3.5 Editor Windows 2.3.6 Figure Windows 2.4 Scripts 2.4.1 Text Files 2.4.2 Creating Scripts 2.4.3 The Current Directory 2.4.4 Running Scripts 2.4.5 Punctuating Scripts 2.4.6 Debugging Scripts 2.5 Engineering Example— Spacecraft Launch 3.1 Concept: Using Built-in Functions 3.2 Concept: Data Collections 3.2.1 Data Abstraction 3.2.2 Homogeneous Collection 3.3 Vectors 3.3.1 Creating a Vector 3.3.2 Size of a Vector 3.3.3 Indexing a Vector 3.3.4 Shortening a Vector 3.3.5 Operating on Vectors 3.4 Engineering Example—Forces and Moments 3.5 Arrays 3.5.1 Properties of an Array 3.5.2 Creating an Array 3.5.3 Accessing Elements of an Array 3.5.4 Removing Elements of an Array 3.5.5 Operating on Arrays 3.6 Engineering Example—Computing Soil Volume 4.1 Concept: Code Blocks 4.2 Conditional Execution in General 4.3 if Statements 4.3.1 General Template 4.3.2 Matlab Implementation 4.3.3 Important Ideas 4.4 switch Statements 4.4.1 General Template 4.4.2 Matlab Implementation 4.5 Iteration in General 4.6 for Loops 4.6.1 General for Loop Template 4.6.2 Matlab Implementation 4.6.3 Indexing Implementation 4.6.4 Breaking a for Loop 4.7 while Loops 4.7.1 General while Template 4.7.2 Matlab while Loop Implementation 4.7.3 Loop-and-a-Half Implementation 4.7.4 Breaking a while Loop 4.8 Engineering Example—Computing Liquid Levels 5.1 Concepts: Abstraction and Encapsulation 5.2 Black Box View of a Function 5.3 Matlab Implementation 5.3.1 General Template 5.3.2 Function Definition 5.3.3 Storing and Using Functions 5.3.4 Calling Functions 5.3.5 Returning Multiple Results 5.3.6 Auxiliary Local Functions 5.3.7 Encapsulation in Matlab Functions 5.3.8 Global Variables 5.4 Engineering Example—Measuring a Solid Object 6.1 Character String Concepts: Mapping and Casting 6.2 Matlab Implementation 6.2.1 Slicing and Concatenating Strings 6.2.2 Arithmetic and Logical Operations 6.2.3 Useful Functions 6.3 Format Conversion Functions 6.3.1 Conversion from Numbers to Strings 6.3.2 Conversion from Strings to Numbers 6.4 Character String Operations 6.4.1 Simple Data Output: The disp(...) Function 6.4.2 Complex Output 6.4.3 Comparing Strings 6.5 Arrays of Strings 6.6 Engineering Example— Encryption 7.1 Concept: Collecting Dissimilar Objects 7.2 Cell Arrays 7.2.1 Creating Cell Arrays 7.2.2 Accessing Cell Arrays 7.2.3 Using Cell Arrays 7.2.4 Processing Cell Arrays 7.3 Structures 7.3.1 Constructing and Accessing One Structure 7.3.2 Constructor Functions 7.4 Structure Arrays 7.4.1 Constructing Cell Arrays 7.4.2 Accessing Structure Elements 7.4.3 Manipulating Structures 7.5 Engineering Example—Assembling a Structure 8.1 Concept: Serial Input and Output (I/O) 8.2 Workspace I/O 8.3 High-level I/O Functions 8.3.1 Exploration 8.3.2 Spreadsheets 8.3.3 Delimited Text Files 8.4 Low-level File I/O 8.4.1 Opening and Closing Files 8.4.2 Reading Text Files 8.4.3 Examples of Reading Text Files 8.4.4 Writing Text Files 8.5 Engineering Example— Spreadsheet Data 9.1 Concept:The Activation Stack 9.1.1 A Stack 9.1.2 Activation Stack 9.1.3 Function Instances 9.2 Recursion Defined 9.3 Implementing a Recursive Function 9.4 Exceptions 9.4.1 Historical Approaches 9.4.2 Generic Exception Implementation 9.4.3 Implementation 9.5 Wrapper Functions 9.6 Examples of Recursion 9.6.1 Detecting Palindromes 9.6.2 Fibonacci Series 9.6.3 Zeros of a Function 9.7 Engineering Example—Robot Arm Motion 10.1 Solving Simple Problems 10.2 Assembling Solution Steps 10.3 Summary of Operations 10.3.1 Basic Arithmetic Operations 10.3.2 Inserting into a Collection 10.3.3 Traversing a Collection 10.3.4 Building a Collection 10.3.5 Mapping a Collection 10.3.6 Filtering a Collection 10.3.7 Summarizing a Collection 10.3.8 Searching a Collection 10.3.9 Sorting a Collection 10.4 Solving Larger Problems 10.5 Engineering Example— Processing Geopolitical Data 11.1 Plotting in General 11.1.1 A Figure—The Plot Container 11.1.2 Simple Functions for Enhancing Plots 11.1.3 Multiple Plots on One Figure—Subplots 11.1.4 Manually Editing Plots 11.2 2-D Plotting 11.2.1 Simple Plots 11.2.2 Plot Options 11.2.3 Parametric Plots 11.2.4 Other 2-D Plot Capabilities 11.3 3-D Plotting 11.3.1 Linear 3-D Plots 11.3.2 Linear Parametric 3-D Plots 11.3.3 Other 3-D Plot Capabilities 11.4 Surface Plots 11.4.1 Basic Capabilities 11.4.2 Simple Exercises 11.4.3 3-D Parametric Surfaces 11.4.4 Bodies of Rotation 11.4.5 Other 3-D Surface Plot Capabilities 11.4.6 Assembling Compound Surfaces 11.5 Manipulating Plotted Data 11.6 Engineering Example—Visualizing Geographic Data 11.6.1 Analyzing the Data 11.6.2 Displaying the Data 12.1 Concept: Behavioral Abstraction 12.2 Matrix Operations 12.2.1 Matrix Multiplication 12.2.2 Matrix Division 12.2.3 Matrix Exponentiation 12.3 Implementation 12.3.1 Matrix Multiplication 12.3.2 Matrix Division 12.4 Rotating Coordinates 12.4.1 2-D Rotation 12.4.2 3-D Rotation 12.5 Solving Simultaneous Linear Equations 12.5.1 Intersecting Lines 12.5.2 Curve Fitting 12.6 Engineering Examples 12.6.1 Ceramic Composition 12.6.2 Analyzing an Electrical Circuit 13.1 Nature of an Image 13.2 Image Types 13.2.1 True Color Images 13.2.2 Gray Scale Images 13.2.3 Color Mapped Images 13.2.4 Preferred Image Format 13.3 Reading, Displaying, and Writing Images 13.4 Operating on Images 13.4.1 Stretching or Shrinking Images 13.4.2 Color Masking 13.4.3 Creating a Kaleidoscope 13.4.4 Images on a Surface 13.5 Engineering Example—Detecting Edges 14.1 The Physics of Sound 14.2 Recording and Playback 14.3 Implementation 14.4 Time Domain Operations 14.4.1 Slicing and Concatenating Sound 14.4.2 Musical Background 14.4.3 Changing Sound Frequency 14.5 The Fast Fourier Transform 14.5.1 Background 14.5.2 Implementation 14.5.3 Simple Spectral Analysis 14.6 Frequency Domain Operations 14.7 Engineering Example—Music Synthesizer 15.1 Interpolation 15.1.1 Linear Interpolation 15.1.2 Cubic Spline Interpolation 15.1.3 Extrapolation 15.2 Curve Fitting 15.2.1 Linear Regression 15.2.2 Polynomial Regression 15.2.3 Practical Application 15.3 Numerical Integration 15.3.1 Determination of the Complete Integral 15.3.2 Continuous Integration Problems 15.4 Numerical Differentiation 15.5 Analytical Operations 15.6 Implementation 15.7 Engineering Example—Shaping Synthesizer Notes 16.1 Measuring Algorithm Cost 16.1.1 Specific Big O Examples 16.1.2 Analyzing Complex Algorithms 16.2 Algorithms for Sorting Data 16.2.1 Insertion Sort 16.2.2 Bubble Sort 16.2.3 Quick Sort 16.2.4 Quick Sort in Place 16.2.5 Merge Sort 16.2.6 Radix Sort 16.3 Performance Analysis 16.4 Applications of Sorting Algorithms 16.4.1 Using sort(...) 16.4.2 Insertion Sort 16.4.3 Bubble Sort 16.4.4 Quick Sort 16.4.5 Merge Sort 16.5 Engineering Example—A Selection of Countries 17.1 Queues 17.1.1 The Nature of a Queue 17.1.2 Implementing Queues 17.1.3 Priority Queues 17.1.4 Testing Queues 17.2 Graphs 17.2.1 Graph Examples 17.2.2 Processing Graphs 17.2.3 Building Graphs 17.2.4 Traversing Graphs 17.3 Minimum Spanning Trees 17.4 Finding Paths 17.4.1 Path Search Algorithms 17.4.2 Breadth-First Search (BFS) 17.4.3 Dijkstra’s Algorithm 17.4.4 A* Algorithm 17.4.5 Testing Graph Search Algorithms 17.5 Engineering Applications Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D