Mathematica 7 Released

By Peter Varhol

Wolfram Research (Champaign, IL) announced Mathematica 7, a release that accelerates the drive to integrate and automate functionality as core Mathematica capabilities, adding image processing, parallel high-performance computing (HPC), new on-demand curated data, and other recently developed computational innovations. In total, the release includes more than 500 new functions and 12 application areas.

  Image processing is one key integrated addition. Industrial-strength,  high-performance functions for image composition, transformation, enhancement,  and segmentation combine with the existing Mathematica infrastructure of high-level language, automated interface construction, interactive notebook documents, and computational power to create a uniquely versatile image processing solution.

  Built-in parallel computing is another key new area of integration in Mathematica 7 (and a first across technical computing). For the first time, every copy of Mathematica (as well as the Mathematica Player Pro 7 deployment platform) now comes standard with the technology to parallelize computations over multiple cores or over networks of Mathematica deployed across a grid. Every copy of Mathematica 7 comes with four computation processes included. More processes as well as network capabilities can be added easily. Parallel computing is an important next step in increasing technical computing performance because all computers are becoming multicore.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.