#+title: RAnT

A Rust library for numerical simulation of non-linear systems.

** Idea

This library aims to be an alternative to other numerical simulators.
The tool [[https://github.com/cloudsftp/AnT][AnT]], that I was using extensively during my [[https://github.com/cloudsftp/Masterarbeit][masters thesis]], is the inspiration for this project.

In contrast to the tool mentioned above, with this library one writes the function of interest in rust code and passes it to the appropriate library functions for simulation and analysis.
We hope to achieve performance improvements through compiler optimizations and static linking.

** Roadmap [7/10]

1. [X] Simulate 1D floating-point R -> R functions
   - Cycles and Periods
2. [X] Scanning parameters 1D
3. [X] Test performance of generic S -> S functions
4. [X] Test logistic period results
5. [X] ND scans
6. [X] Write result to file
7. [X] Parallelization
8. [-] More scanning options
   - [ ] initial states (keep from last scan point)
   - [X] multi dimensional for both initial states and parameters
9. [-] Image generation
   - [X] prototype
   - [ ] library
10. [ ] Interactive image generation (zoom and pan)

* Design decisions

** No implementation of extra library functions for 1D functions

A benchmarking of a generic implementation and a static implementation for 1D functions found no significant difference (58ms vs. 60ms).
Suprisingly, the generic implementation was a little faster.
Therefore, we will only keep the generic implementation for improved maintenance.

** Parallelization

- Parallel iterators thanks to [[https://github.com/rayon-rs/rayon][rayon]]
- Each iterator computes one line sequentially at a time