OMPC: an Open-Source MATLAB(®)-to-Python Compiler

Free access to scientific information facilitates scientific progress. Open-access scientific journals are a first step in this direction; a further step is to make auxiliary and supplementary materials that accompany scientific publications, such as methodological procedures and data-analysis tools, open and accessible to the scientific community. To this purpose it is instrumental to establish a software base, which will grow toward a comprehensive free and open-source language of technical and scientific computing. Endeavors in this direction are met with an important obstacle. MATLAB(®), the predominant computation tool in many fields of research, is a closed-source commercial product. To facilitate the transition to an open computation platform, we propose Open-source MATLAB(®)-to-Python Compiler (OMPC), a platform that uses syntax adaptation and emulation to allow transparent import of existing MATLAB(®) functions into Python programs. The imported MATLAB(®) modules will run independently of MATLAB(®), relying on Python's numerical and scientific libraries. Python offers a stable and mature open source platform that, in many respects, surpasses commonly used, expensive commercial closed source packages. The proposed software will therefore facilitate the transparent transition towards a free and general open-source lingua franca for scientific computation, while enabling access to the existing methods and algorithms of technical computing already available in MATLAB(®). OMPC is available at http://ompc.juricap.com.