braidlab is a Matlab package for analyzing data using braids, written by Jean-Luc Thiffeault and Marko Budisic.

The easiest way to use braidlab is to download one of the binaries for Linux, Mac OSX, or Windows. Unzip/untar the file and make sure the folder containing +braidlab is on your Matlab path. Run import braidlab.* to access the braidlab namespace. You can then create a braid with

> b = braid([1 2 -3])

b =

 < 1  2 -3 >

The train track map associated with the braid's mapping class is

> ttmap(b.train)

 1 -> 4
 2 -> 1
 3 -> 2
 4 -> 3
 a -> D
 b -> d a -3 b -4 B
 c -> B 3 A
 d -> c

where numbers denote peripheral edges, and letters main edges.

braidlab can do much more; see the braidlab user's guide in the doc folder for many examples. The guide is also posted on arXiv. For detailed installation instructions from source files, see the Appendix in the guide.

If you use braidlab in one of your papers, please cite it as:

• J.-L. Thiffeault and Marko Budišić, Braidlab: A Software Package for Braids and Loops, arXiv:1410.0849 [math.GT] (2013-2021), Version <<version number>>.

You can use this BibTeX entry:

@Misc{braidlab,
    author = {Jean-Luc Thiffeault and Marko Budi\v{s}i\'{c}},
    title = {Braidlab: {A} Software Package for Braids and Loops},
    eprint = {arXiv:1410.0849 [math.GT]},
    url = {http://arXiv.org/abs/1410.0849},
    year = {2013--2021},
    note = {Version <<version number>>}
}

We can add your paper to the publication list.

Michael Allshouse contributed extensive testing, comments, and some of the code.

braidlab uses Toby Hall's Trains; Jae Choon Cha's CBraid; Juan Gonzalez-Meneses's Braiding; John D'Errico's Variable Precision Integer Arithmetic; Markus Buehren's assignmentoptimal; and Jakob Progsch and Václav Zeman's ThreadPool.

braidlab is released under the GNU General Public License v3. See COPYING and LICENSE.

The development of braidlab was supported by the US National Science Foundation, under grants DMS-0806821 and CMMI-1233935.