IGOR Pro is a scientific

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 data analysis software, numerical computing environment and programming language that runs on Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 or Mac

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 operating systems. It is developed by WaveMetrics Inc., and was originally aimed at time series

Time series

In statistics, signal processing, econometrics and mathematical finance, a time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times spaced at uniform time intervals. Examples of time series are the daily closing value of the Dow Jones index or the annual flow volume of the...

 analysis, but has since then evolved and covers other applications such as curve fitting

Curve fitting

Curve fitting is the process of constructing a curve, or mathematical function, that has the best fit to a series of data points, possibly subject to constraints. Curve fitting can involve either interpolation, where an exact fit to the data is required, or smoothing, in which a "smooth" function...

 and image processing

Image processing

In electrical engineering and computer science, image processing is any form of signal processing for which the input is an image, such as a photograph or video frame; the output of image processing may be either an image or, a set of characteristics or parameters related to the image...

. It comes with a comprehensive programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 with compiler

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

, but many functions are also accessible through menus

Menu (computing)

In computing and telecommunications, a menu is a list of commands presented to an operator by a computer or communications system. A menu is used in contrast to a command-line interface, where instructions to the computer are given in the form of commands .Choices given from a menu may be selected...

. IGOR Pro's strengths include its graphics capabilities, and the possibility of extending the built-in functions with external operations (XOP) allowing data acquisition

Data acquisition

Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems typically convert analog waveforms into digital values for processing...

, manipulation and analysis features, communication with external devices and in principle any other task that can be programmed in C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 or C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

.

Community

Complementing the professional development and support provided by WaveMetrics, a broad community of users and enthusiast provide user-to-user support through a mailing list and IgorExchange, a collaborative web site sponsored by WaveMetrics whose main features are a forum and places where programmers can share extensions, complete projects or "code snippets".

External links

• Wavemetrics Inc. (manufacturer)
• IgorExchange Projects, extensions and code share.
• Igor mailing list Unofficial archive of Igor mailing list