
=head1 OVERVIEW

This module is available on CPAN

=cut

=head1 NAME

PDL::Fit::Levmar - Levenberg-Marquardt fit/optimization routines

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Levenberg-Marquardt routines for least-squares fit to
functions non-linear in fit parameters.

This module provides a L<PDL> ( L<PDL::PDL> ) interface to the non-linear fitting
library levmar 2.5 (written in C). Levmar is
L<thread|/example--6> aware (in the L<PDL> sense), provides support for analytic
or finite difference derivatives (in case no analytic
derivatives are supplied), L<linear|/A> and/or L<box|/UB>
and/or L<inequality|/C>
constraints (with L<parameter fixing|/FIX> as a special
case) and pure single or double precision computation. The
routines are re-entrant, so they can be used in
multi-threaded applications (not tested!). Levmar is suited
both for data fitting and for optimization problems.

The source code for the C levmar library is included in this
distribution. However, linearly-constrained fitting requires
that C<PDL::Fit::Levmar> be built with support for B<lapack>
and B<blas> libraries. See the files F<INSTALL> and
F<Makefile.PL>, for more information. If
C<PDL::Fit::Levmar> is built without support for C<lapack>,
the fitting options C<A>, C<B>, C<C>, C<D>, and C<FIX> may
not be used. All other options, including C<FIXB>, do not
require C<lapack>.

User supplied fit functions can be written in perl code that
takes pdls as arguments, or, for efficiency, in in a simple
function description language (C<lpp>), which is rapidly and
transparently translated to C, compiled, and dynamically
linked.  Fit functions may also be written in pure C.  If C
or C<lpp> fit functions are used, the entire fitting
procedure is done in pure compiled C. The compilation and
linking is done only the first time the function is defined.

There is a document distributed with this module
F<./doc/levmar.pdf> by the author of liblevmar describing
the fit algorithms. Additional information on liblevmar is available at
L<http://www.ics.forth.gr/~lourakis/levmar/>

Don't confuse this module with, but see also,  L<PDL::Fit::LM>.

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    use PDL::Fit::Levmar;
    $result_hash = levmar($params,$x,$t, FUNC => '
                      function somename
                      x = p0 * exp(-t*t * p1);');
    print levmar_report($result_hash);


=head1 EXAMPLES


A number of examples of invocations of C<levmar> follow. The test
directory C<./t> in the module distribution contains many more examples.
The following seven examples are included as stand-alone scripts in the
./examples/ directory. Some of the necessary lines are not repeated in
each example below.

=over 3

=item example--1

In this example we fill co-ordinate $t and ordinate $x arrays
with 100 pairs of sample data. Then we call the fit routine
with initial guesses of the parameters.

 use PDL::LiteF;
 use PDL::Fit::Levmar;
 use PDL::NiceSlice;
 
 $n = 100;
 $t = 10 * (sequence($n)/$n -1/2);
 $x = 3 * exp(-$t*$t * .3  );
 $p = pdl [ 1, 1 ]; # initial  parameter guesses

 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC =>
          '   function
              x = p0 * exp( -t*t * p1);
           ');
 print levmar_report($h);

This example gives the output:

 Estimated parameters: [         3        0.3]    
 Covariance: 
 [
  [5.3772081e-25 7.1703376e-26]
  [7.1703376e-26 2.8682471e-26]
 ]

 ||e||_2 at initial parameters = 125.201
 Errors at estimated parameters:
 ||e||_2	 = 8.03854e-22
 ||J^T e||_inf	= 2.69892e-05
 ||Dp||_2	= 3.9274e-15
 \mu/max[J^T J]_ii ]	= 1.37223e-05
 number of iterations	= 15
 reason for termination: = stopped by small ||e||_2
 number of function evaluations	= 20
 number of jacobian evaluations	= 2

In the example above and all following examples, it is necessary
to include the three C<use> statements at the top of the file.
The fit function in this example is in C<lpp> code.
The parameter pdl $p is the input parameters (guesses)
levmar returns a hash with several elements including a
plain text report of the fit, which we chose to print.

The interface is flexible-- we could have also called levmar like this

 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, '   function
                      x = p0 * exp( -t*t * p1);
                      ');

or like this

 $h = levmar(P =>$p, X => $x, T=> $t, FUNC => '   function
                      x = p0 * exp( -t*t * p1);
                      ');

After the fit, the input parameters $p are left
unchanged. The output hash $h contains, among other things,
the optimized parameters in $h->{P}.

=item example--2

Next, we do the same fit, but with a perl/PDL fit function.

 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC => sub {
    my ($p,$x,$t) = @_;
    my ($p0,$p1)  = list $p;
    $x .= $p0 * exp(-$t*$t * $p1);
 });

Using perl code (second example) results in slower execution
than using pure C (first example). How much slower depends
on the problem (see L</IMPLEMENTATION> below). See also the
section on L<perl subroutines|/Perl_Subroutines>.

=item example--3

Next, we solve the same problem using a C fit routine.

 levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC => '
 #include <math.h>
 void gaussian(FLOAT *p, FLOAT *x, int m, int n, FLOAT *t)
 {
  int i;
  for(i=0; i<n; ++i)
           x[i] = p[0] * exp( -t[i]*t[i] * p[1]);
 }
 ');

The macro C<FLOAT> is used rather than float or double because
the C code will be used for both single and double precision
routines. ( The code is automatically compiled twice; once
with C<FLOAT> expanded to double and once expanded to float)
The correct version is used automatically depending on the
type of pdls you give levmar.


=item example--4

We supply an analytic derivative ( analytic jacobian).

 $st = '
   function
   x = p0 * exp( -t*t * p1);

   jacobian
   FLOAT ex, arg;
   loop
   arg = -t*t * p1;
   ex = exp(arg);
   d0 = ex;
   d1 = -p0 * t*t * ex ;

 ';

 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC => $st);

If no jacobian function is supplied, levmar automatically
uses numeric difference derivatives. You can also explicitly
use numeric derivatives with the option C<DERIVATIVE>
C<< => 'numeric' >>.

Note that the directives C<function> and C<jacobian> begin
the function definitions. You can also supply a name if
you like, eg.  C<function john> and C<jacobian mary>.

In C<lpp>, the co-ordinate data is always identified by 't', the
ordinate data by 'x' in the fit function and by 'dn', with n a
number, in the jacobian. The parameters are identified by
'p'. All other identifiers are pure C identifiers and
must be defined, as are C<ex> and C<arg> in the example.

Referring to the example above, if the directive C<loop> appears
on a line by itself, code after it is wrapped in a loop over
the data; code before it is not. If  C<loop> does not appear,
then all the code is wrapped in a loop. 'loop' must occur zero
or one times in each of the fit and jacobian definitions.
For some problems, you will not want a loop at all. In this
case the directive C<noloop> is placed after the declarations.

To see what C<lpp> does, pass the option C<NOCLEAN> C<<  => 1 >> to levmar
and look at the C source file that is written.

When defining the derivatives above (d0, d1) etc., you must
put the lines in the proper order  ( eg, not d1,d0 ). (This
is for efficiency, see the generated C code.)

One final note on this example-- we declared C<ex> and C<arg> to 
be type C<FLOAT>. Because they are temporary variables, we could
have hard coded them to double, in which case both the float
and double code versions would have used type double for them.
This is ok, because it doesn't cost any storage or cause
a memory fault because of incorrect pointer arithmetic.


=item example--5

Here is an example from the liblevmar demo program that shows
one more bit of C<lpp> syntax.

 $defst = "
    function modros
    noloop
    x0 = 10 * (p1 -p0*p0);
    x1 = 1.0 - p0;
    x2 = 100;
    jacobian jacmodros
    noloop
    d0[0] = -20 * p0;
    d1[0] = 10;
    d0[1] = -1;
    d1[1] = 0;
    d0[2] = 0;
    d1[2] = 0;
  ";
  $p = pdl [-1.2, 1];
  $x = pdl [0,0,0];   
  $h = levmar( $p,$x, FUNC => $defst );

The directive C<noloop> mentioned above has been used,
indicating that there are no implied loops in the
function. Note that this model function is designed only for
$x->nelem == 3. The additional syntax is in the
derivatives. Keeping in mind that there is no loop variable,
dq[r] means derivative w.r.t q evaluated at x[r].  (This is
translated by C<lpp> to d[q+r*m], which is the index into a
1-d array.)

=item example--6

Here is an example that uses implicit threading. We create data
from a gaussian function with four different sets of parameters
and fit it all in one function call.

 $st = '
    function
    x = p0 * exp( -t*t * p1);
   ';

 $n = 10;
 $t = 10 * (sequence($n)/$n -1/2);
 $x = zeroes($n,4);
 map {  $x(:,$_->[0])  .= $_->[1] * exp(-$t*$t * $_->[2]  ) } 
         ( [0,3,.2], [1, 28, .1] , [2,2,.01], [3,3,.3] );
 $p = [ 5, 1];  # initial guess
 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC => $st );
 print $h->{P} . "\n";

 [
  [         3        0.2]
  [        28        0.1]
  [         2       0.01]
  [         3        0.3]
 ]


=item example--7

This example shows how to fit a bivariate Gaussian. Here
is the fit function.

 sub gauss2d {
    my ($p,$xin,$t) = @_;
    my ($p0,$p1,$p2) = list $p;
    my $n = $t->nelem;
    my $t1 = $t(:,*$n); # first coordinate
    my $t2 = $t(*$n,:); # second coordinate
    my $x = $xin->splitdim(0,$n);
    $x .= $p0 * exp( -$p1*$t1*$t1 - $p2*$t2*$t2);
 }


We would prefer a function that maps t(n,n) --> x(n,n) (with
p viewed as parameters.) But the levmar library expects one
dimensional x and t. So we design C<gauss2d> to take
piddles with these dimensions: C<p(3)>, C<xin(n*n)>,
C<t(n)>. For this example, we assume that both the co-ordinate
axes run over the same range, so we only need to pass n
values for t. The piddles t1 and t2 are (virtual) copies of
t with dummy dimensions inserted. Each represents
co-ordinate values along each of the two axes at each point
in the 2-d space, but independent of the position along the
other axis.  For instance C<t1(i,j) == t(i)> and C<t1(i,j)
== t(j)>. We assume that the piddle xin is a flattened
version of the ordinate data, so we split the dimensions in
x. Then the entire bi-variate gaussian is calculated with
one line that operates on 2-d matrices. Now we create some
data,

   my $n = 101;  # number of data points along each axis
   my $scale = 3; # range of co-ordiate data
   my $t = sequence($n); # co-ordinate data (used for both axes)
   $t *= $scale/($n-1);
   $t  -= $scale/2;     # rescale and shift.
   my $x = zeroes($n,$n);
   my $p = pdl  [ .5,2,3]; # actual parameters
   my $xlin = $x->clump(-1); # flatten the x data
   gauss2d( $p, $xlin, $t->copy); # compute the bivariate gaussian data.

Now x contains the ordinate data (so does xlin, but in a flattened shape.)
Finally, we fit the data with an incorrect set of initial parameters,

   my $p1 = pdl  [ 1,1,1];  # not the parameters we used to make the data
   my $h = levmar($p1,$xlin,$t,\&gauss2d);

At this point C<$h->{P}> refers to the output parameter piddle C<[0.5, 2, 3]>.

=back

=head1 CONSTRAINTS

Several of the options below are related to constraints. There are
three types: box, linear equation, and linear inequality. They may
be used in any combination. (But there is no testing if
there is a possible solution.) None or one or two  of C<UB> and C<LB> may be
specified. None or both of C<A> and C<B> may be specified.
None or both of C<C> and C<D> may be specified.

=head1 OPTIONS

It is best to learn how to call levmar by looking at the
examples first, and looking at this section later.

levmar() is called like this

 levmar($arg1, $arg2, ..., OPT1=>$val1, OPT2=>$val2, ...);
 or this:
 levmar($arg1, $arg2, ..., {OPT1=>$val1, OPT2=>$val2, ...});

When calling levmar, the first 3 piddle arguments (or refs
to arrays), if present, are taken to be C<$p>,C<$x>, and C<$t>
(parameters, ordinate data, and co-ordinate data) in that
order. The first scalar value that can be interpreted as a
function will be. Everything else must be passed as an
option in a key-value pair. If you prefer, you can pass some
or all of  C<$p,$x,$t> and the function as key-values in the
hash. Note that after the first key-value pair, you cannot
pass any more non-hash arguments. The following calls are equivalent
(where $func specifies the function as described in L</FUNC> ).

 levmar($p, $x, $t, $func);
 levmar($func,$p, $x, $t);
 levmar($p, $x, $t, FUNC=> $func);
 levmar($p, $x, T=>$t, FUNC => $func);
 levmar($p, X=>$x, T=>$t, FUNC => $func);
 levmar(P=>$p, X=>$x, T=>$t, FUNC => $func);

In the following, if the default value is not mentioned, it is undef.
C<$outh> refers to the output hash.

Some of these options are actually options to Levmar::Func.
All options to Levmar::Func may by given in calls to levmar().

=over 4

=item FUNC

This option is required (but it can be passed before the
options hash without the key C<FUNC> ) It can be
any of the following, which are auto-detected.

 a string containing lpp code
 a string containing pure C code
 the filename of a file containing lpp code (which must end in '.lpp' )
 the filename of a file containing pure C code ( which must end in '.c' )
 a reference to perl code
 a reference to a previously created Levmar::Func object (which was
 previously created via one of the preceeding methods.)

If you are fitting a lot of data by doing many iterations over
a loop of perl code, it is by far most efficient to create a Func
object from C or lpp code and pass it to levmar. (Implicit threading
does not recompile code in any case.)

You can also pass pure C code via the option CSRC.

=item JFUNC

This parameter is the jacobian as a ref to perl CODE. For
C and C<lpp> code, the jacobian, if present, is always in the
same source file as the fit function; in this case, you
should leave C<JFUNC> undefined. See L</Perl_Subroutines>

=item DERIVATIVE

This takes the value 'numeric' or 'analytic'. If it is
set to 'analytic', but no analytic jacobian of the model
function is supplied, then the numeric algorithms will be used
anyway.

=item NOCLEAN

If defined (NOCLEAN => 1), files containing generated C
object and dynamic library code are not deleted. If not
defined, these files are deleted after they are no longer
needed. For the source and object (.c and .o) files, this
means immediately after the dynamic library (.so) is built.
The dynamic library file is deleted when the corresponding
Levmar::Func object is destroyed. (It could be deleted after
it is loaded, I suppose, and then be rebuilt if needed
again)

=item FIX

Example: Fix => [1,0,0,1,0].
This option takes a pdl (or array ref) of the same shape as
the parameters $p. Each element must have the value zero or
one. A zero corresponds to a free parameter and a one to a
fixed parameter. The best fit is found keeping the fixed
parameters at their input values and letting the free
parameters vary. This is implemented by using the linear
constraint option described below. Each element must be
either one or zero. This option currently cannot be
threaded. That is, if the array FIX has more than one
dimension you will not get correct results. Also, PDL will
not add dimension correctly if you pass additional
dimensions in other quantities.  Threading will work if you
use linear contstraints directly via C<A> and C<b>.

=item FIXB

This option is almost the same as FIX. It takes the same
values with the same meanings. It fixes parameters at the value
of the input parameters, but uses
box constraints, i.e., UB and LB rather than linear
constraints A and B. You can specify all three of UB,LB, and FIXB.
In this case, first box constraints determined by UB and LB are applied
Then, for those elements of FIXB with value one, the corresponding
values of UB and LB are overridden.

=item A

Example: A =>pdl [ [1,0], [0,1] ] , B => pdl [ 1,2 ] 

Minimize with linear constraints $A x $p = $b. That is,
parameters $p are optimized over the subset of parameters
that solve the equation.  The dimensions of the quantities
are A(k,m), b(m), p(m), where k is the number of
constraints. ( k <= m ). Note that $b is a vector (it has one
fewer dimensions than A), but the option key is a capital 'B'.

=item B

See C<A>.

=item UB

Example: UB => [10,10,10], LB => [-10,0,-5].
Box constraints. These have the same shape as the parameter
pdl $p. The fit is done with ub forming upper bounds and lb
lower bounds on the parameter values. Use, for instance
PDL::Fit::Levmar::get_dbl_max() for parameters that you
don't want bounded. You can use either linear constraints or
box constraints, or both. That is, you may specify A, B, UB, and LB.

=item LB

See C<UB>.


=item WGHTS

Penalty weights can be given optionally when box and linear equality
constraints are both passed to levmar. See the levmar documenation for
how to use this. Note that if C and D are used then the WGHTS must
not passed.

=item C

Example: C => [ [ -1, -2, -1, -1], [ -3, -1, -2,  1] ], D => [ -5, -0.4]
Linear inequality constraints. Minimize with constraints $C x $p >= $d.
The dimensions are C(k2,m), D(m), p(m).

=item D

See C<C>

=item  P

Keys P, X, and T can be used to send to the parameters, ordinates and coordinates.
Alternatively, you can send them as non-option arguments to levmar before
the option arguments.

=item X

See C<P>

=item T

See C<P>

=item DIR

The directory containing files created when compiling C<lpp>
and C fit functions.  This defaults to './tempcode'; The .c,
.o, and .so files will be written to this directory. This
option actually falls through to levmar_func.  Such options
should be in separate section, or otherwise noted.

=item GETOPTS

If defined, return a ref to a hash containing the default
values of the parameters.

=item WORK

levmar() needs some storage for scratch space. Normally, you
are not concerned with this-- the storage is allocated and
deallocated automatically without you being aware. However
if you have very large data sets, and are doing several
fits, this allocation and deallocation may be time consuming
(the time required to allocate storage grows faster than
linearly with the amount of storage). If you are using
implicit threading, the storage is only allocated once
outside the threadloop even if you don't use this
option. However, you may want to do several fits on the perl
level and want to allocate the work space only once.

If you set WORK to a null piddle (say $work) and keep the
reference and call levmar(), storage will be created before
the fit. If you continue to call levmar() with WORK =>
$work, no new storage will be created. In this example,

 sub somefitting {
  my $work = PDL->null;
  ...
  while (1) {
    my $h = levmar($p, ... ,WORK => $work);
    ... change inputs based on results in $h  
    last if somecondition is true;
  }
  ...
 }

storage is created in the first call to C<levmar> and is
destroyed upon leaving the subroutine C<somefitting>
(provided a reference to $work was not stored in some data
structure delclared in an block enclosing the subroutine.)

The numeric-derivative algorithms require more storage than
the analytic-derivative algorithms. So if you create the
storage for $work on a call with DERIVATIVE=>'numeric' and
subsequently make a call with DERIVATIVE=>'analytic' you are
ok. But if you try it in the other order, you will get a
runtime error. You can also pass a pdl created elsewhere
with the correct type and enough or more than enough storage.

There are several pdls used by levmar() that have a similar option.

(see also in PDL::Indexing )

=item COVAR

Send a pdl reference for the output hash element COVAR. You may
want to test if this option is more efficient for
some problem. But unless the covariance matrix is very large,
it probably won't help much. On the other hand it almost certainly
won't make levmar() less efficient.  See the section on WORK above.

Note that levmar returns a piddle representing the covariance in
the output hash. This will be the the same piddle that you give
as input via this option. So, if you do the following,

  my $covar = PDL->null
  my $h =levmar(...., COVAR => $covar);

then $covar and $h->{COVAR} are references to the same
pdl. The storage for the pdl will not be destroyed until
both $covar and $h->{COVAR} become undefined. The option
C<WORK> differs in this regard. That is, the piddle containing
the workspace is not returned in the hash.

=item NOCOVAR

If defined, no covariance matrix is computed.

=item POUT

Send a pdl reference for the output hash element P. Don't
confuse this with the option P which can be used to send the
initial guess for the parameters
(see C<COVAR> and C<WORK>).

=item INFO

Send a pdl reference for the output hash element C<INFO>.
(see C<COVAR> and C<WORK>)

=item RET

Send a pdl reference for the output hash element C<RET>.
(see C<COVAR> and C<WORK>)


=item MAXITS

Maximum number of iterations to try before giving up. The default
is 100.

=item MU

The starting value of the parameter mu in the L-M algorithm.

=item EPS1, EPS2, EPS3

Stopping thresholds for C<||J^T e||_inf>, C<||Dp||_2> and
C<||e||_2>. (see the document levmar.pdf by the author of
liblevmar and distributed with this module) The algorithm
stops when the first threshold is reached (or C<MAXITS> is reached).  See
C<REASON> for determining which threshold was reached.

Here, C<e> is a the vector of errors between the data and
the model function and C<p> is the vector of parameters.
 S<||J^T e||_inf> is the gradient of C<e> w.r.t C<p>
at the current estimate of C<p>;  C<||Dp||_2>  is the amount
by which C<p> is currently being shifted at each iteration;
C<||e||_2> is a measure of the error between the model function
at the current estimate for C<p> and the data.

=item DELTA

This is a step size used in computing numeric derivatives. It is
not used if the analytic jacobian is used.


=item MKOBJ

command to compile source into object code. This option is actually set in
the Levmar::Func object, but can be given in calls to levmar().
The default value is determined by the perl installation and can
be determined by examining the Levmar::Func object returned by 
new or the output hash of a call to levmar. A typical value is
 cc -c -O2 -fPIC -o %o %c

=item MKSO

command to convert object code to dynamic library code.
This option is actually set in the Levmar::Func object.  A
typical default value is
 cc -shared -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector %o -o %s

=item CTOP

The value of this string will be written at the top of the c code
written by Levmar::Func. This can be used to include headers and so forth.
This option is actually set in the Levmar::Func object. This code is also written
at the top of c code translated from lpp code.


=item FVERBOSE

If true (eg 1) Print the compiling and linking commands to STDERR when compiling fit functions.
This option is actually passed to Levmar::Func. Default is 0.

=item Default values

Here are the default values
of some options


 $Levmar_defaults = {
   FUNC => undef,  # Levmar::Func object, or function def, or ...
   JFUNC => undef,  # must be ref to perl sub
   MAXITS => 100,   # maximum iterations
   MU => LM_INIT_MU,      # These are described in levmar docs
   EPS1 => LM_STOP_THRESH,
   EPS2 => LM_STOP_THRESH,
   EPS3 => LM_STOP_THRESH,
   DELTA => LM_DIFF_DELTA,
   DERIVATIVE => 'analytic',
   FIX => undef,
   A => undef,
   B => undef,
   C => undef,
   D => undef,
   UB = undef,
   LB => undef,
   X => undef,
   P => undef,
   T => undef,
   WGHTS => undef,
   # meant to be private
   LFUNC => undef,  # only Levmar::Func object, made from FUNC
   };

=back


=head1 OUTPUT

This section describes the contents of the hash that
levmar takes as output. Do not confuse these hash keys with
the hash keys of the input options. It may be a good idea
to change the interface by prepending O to all of the output
keys that could be confused with options to levmar().

=over 3

=item  P (output)

pdl containing the optimized parameters. It has the same shape
as the input parameters.

=item  FUNC (output)

ref to the Levmar::Func object. This object may have been created
during the call to levmar(). For instance, if you pass a string
contiaining an C<lpp> definition, the compiled object (and associated
information) is contained in $outh->{FUNC}. Don't confuse this with
the input parameter of the same name.

=item COVAR (output)

a pdl representing covariance matrix.

=item REASON

an integer code representing the reason for terminating the
fit. (call levmar_report($outh) for an interpretation. The interpretations
are listed here as well (see the liblevmar documentation if you don't
find an explanation somewhere here.)

 1  stopped by small gradient J^T e
 2  stopped by small Dp
 3  stopped by itmax
 4  singular matrix. Restart from current p with increased \mu
 5  no further error reduction is possible. Restart with increased \mu
 6  stopped by small ||e||_2


=item ERRI, ERR1, ERR2, ERR3, ERR4

ERRI is C<||e||_2> at the initial paramters.  ERR1 through
ERR3 are the actual values on termination of the quantities
corresponding to the thresholds EPS1 through EPS3 described
in the options section. ERR4 is C<mu/max[J^T J]_ii>

=item ITS

Number of iterations performed

=item NFUNC, NJAC, NLS

Number of function evaluations, number of jacobian evaluations
and number of linear systems solved.

=item INFO

Array containing  ERRI,ERR1, ..., ERR4, ITS, REASON, NFUNC, NJAC, NLS.

=back

=head1 FIT FUNCTIONS

Fit functions, or model functions can be specified in the following
ways.

=over 3

=item lpp

It is easier to learn to use C<lpp> by reading the C<EXAMPLES> section.

C<lpp> processes a function definition into C code.  It writes
the opening and closing parts of the function, alters a
small number of identifiers if they appear, and wraps some
of the code in a loop. C<lpp> recognizes four directives. They
must occur on a line with nothing else, not even comments.

First, the directives are explained, then the substitutions.
The directive lines have a strict format. All other lines
can contain any C code including comments and B<cpp>
macros. They will be written to a function in C after the
substitutions described below.

=over 3

=item C<function, jacobian>

The first line of the fit function definition must be
C<function funcname>. The first line of the jacobian
definition, if the jacobian is to be defined, is C<jacobian
funcname>. The function names can be any valid C function
name. The names may also be omitted as they are never needed
by the user. The names can be identical. (Note that a
numeric suffix will be automatically added to the function
name if the .so file already exists. This is because, if
another Func object has already loaded the shared library
from an .so file, dlopen will use this loaded library for
all C<Func> objects asking for that .so file, even if the
file has been overwritten, causing unexpected behavior)

=item C<loop>

The directive C<loop> says that all code before C<loop> is not
in the implicit loop, while all code following C<loop> is in
the implicit loop. If you omit the directive, then all the code
is wrapped in a loop.

=item C<noloop>

The directive C<noloop> says that there is no implicit loop anywhere
in the function.

=item Out-of-loop substitutions

These substitutions translate C<lpp> to C in lines that occur
before the implied loop (or everywhere if there is no loop.)
In every case you can write the translated C code into your
function definition yourself and C<lpp> will leave it
untouched.

=over 3

=item pq -> p[q]  

where q is a sequence of digits.


=item xq -> x[q]  

where q is a sequence of digits. This is applied only in the fit function,
not in the jacobian.


=item dq[r] -> d[q+m*r]

(where m == $p->nelem), q and r are sequences of
digits. This applies only in the jacobian. You usually will
only use the fit functions with one value of m. It would
make faster code if you were to explicitly write, say C<d[u]>,
for each derivative at each point. Presumably there is a
small number of data points since this is outside a
loop. Some provisions should be added to C<lpp>, say C<m=3> to
hard code the value of C<m>. But m is only explicitly used in
constructions involving this substitution.


=back

=item In-loop substitutions

These substitutions apply inside the implied loop. The loop variables are
i in the fit function and i and j in the jacobian.

=over 3

=item t -> t[i]   

(literal "i")  You can also write t[i] or t[expression involving i] by hand.
Example: t*t -> t[i]*t[i].


=item pq -> p[q]  

where q is a sequence of digits. Example p3 -> p[3].


=item x -> x[i]   

only in fit function, not in jacobian.


=item (dr or dr[i]) -> d[j++] 

where r is a sequence of digits. Note that r and i are
ignored. So you are required to list the derivatives in
order. An example is

    d0 = t*t;  // derivative w.r.t p[0] loop over all points
    d1 = t;    

If you write C<d1> first and then C<d0>, lpp will incorrectly
assign the derivative functions.

=back


=back



=item C Code

The jacobian name must start with 'jac' when a pure C function definition
is used. To see example of fit functions writen in C, call levmar
with lpp code and the option C<NOCLEAN>. This will leave the C source
in the directory given by C<DIR>. The C code you supply is mangled
slightly before passing it to the compiler: It is copied twice, with
FLOAT defined in one case as C<double> and in the other as C<float>.
The letter C<s> is also appended to the function names in the latter
copy. The C code is parsed to find the fit function name and the
jacobian function name.

We should make it possible to pass the function names as a separate option
rather than parsing the C code. This will allow auxiallary functions to
be defined in the C code; something that is currently not possible.


=item Perl_Subroutines

This is how to use perl subroutines as fit functions... (see
the examples for now, e.g. L<example 2|/example--2>.)  The
fit function takes piddles $p,$x, and $t, with dimensions
m,n, and tn. (often tn ==n ).  These are references with
storage already allocated (by the user and liblevmar). So
you must use C<.=> when setting values. The jacobian takes
piddles $p,$d, and $t, where $d, the piddle of derivatives
has dimensions (m,n). For example

 $f = sub myexp {
    my ($p,$x,$t) = @_;
    my ($p0,$p1,$p2) = list($p);
    $x .= exp($t/$p0);
    $x *= $p1;
    $x += $p2 
 }

 $jf = sub my expjac {
    my ($p,$d,$t) = @_;
    my ($p0,$p1,$p2) = list($p);
    my $arg = $t/$p0;
    my $ex = exp($arg);
    $d((0)) .= -$p1*$ex*$arg/$p0;
    $d((1)) .= $ex;
    $d((2)) .= 1.0;
 }



=back


=head1 PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func Objects

These objects are created every time you call levmar(). The hash
returned by levmar contains a ref to the Func object. For instance
if you do

 $outh = levmar( FUNC => ..., @opts);

then $outh->{LFUNC} will contain a ref to the function object. The .so
file, if it exists, will not be deleted until the object is destroyed.
This will happen, for instance if you do C<$outh = undef>.


=head1 IMPLEMENTATION

This section currently only refers to the interface and not the fit algorithms.

=over 3

=item C fit functions

The module does not use perl interfaces to dlopen or the C
compiler.  The C compiler options are taken from
%Config. This is mostly because I had already written those
parts before I found the modules. I imagine the
implementation here has less overhead, but is less portable.


=item perl subroutine fit functions

Null pdls are created in C code before the fit starts. They
are passed in a struct to the C fit function and derivative
routines that wrap the user's perl code. At each call the
data pointers to the pdls are set to what liblevmar has sent
to the fit functions.  The pdls are deleted after the fit.
Originally, all the information on the fit functions was
supposed to be handled by Levmar::Func. But when I added
perl subroutine support, it was less clumsy to move most of
the code for perl subs to the Levmar module. So the current
solution is not very clean.

=item Efficiency

Using C<lpp> or C is faster than using perl subs, which is
faster than using L<PDL::Fit::LM>, at least in all the tests I have
done. For very large data sets, pure C was twice as fast as
perl subs and three times as fast as Fit::LM.  Some
optimization problems have very small data sets and converge
very slowly.  As the data sets become smaller and the number
of iterations increases the advantage of using pure C
increases as expected. Also, if I fit a small data set
(n=10) a large number of times (just looping over the same
problem), Pure C is ten times faster than Fit::LM, while
Levmar with perl subs is only about 1.15 times faster than
Fit::LM.  All of this was observed on only two different
problems.

=back

=head1 FUNCTIONS

=head2 levmar()

=for ref

Perform Levenberg-Marquardt non-linear least squares fit
to data given a model function.

=for usage

use PDL::Fit::Levmar;

 $result_hash = levmar($p,$x,$t, FUNC => $func, %OPTIONS  ); 

 $p is a pdl of input parameters
 $x is a pdl of ordinate data
 $t is an optional pdl of co-ordinate data
 
levmar() is the main function in the Levmar package. See the
PDL::Fit::Levmar for a complete description.

=for signature

 p(m);  x(n);  t(nt); int itmax();
 [o] covar(m,m) ; int [o] returnval();
 [o] pout(m);  [o] info(q=10);

See the module documentation for information on passing
these arguments to levmar.  Threading is known to
work with p(m) and x(n), but I have not tested the rest.  In
this case all of they output pdls get the correct number of
dimensions (and correct values !).  Notice that t(nt) has a
different dimension than x(n). This is correct because in
some problems there is no t at all, and in some it is
pressed into the service of delivering other parameters to
the fit routine. (Formally, even if you use t(n), they are
parameters.) 


=head2 levmar_chkjac()

=for ref

Check the analytic jacobian of a function by computing
the derivatives numerically.

=for signature
 
    p(m); t(n); [o] err(n);
    This is the relevant part of the signature of the
    routine that does the work.


=for usage

 use PDL::Fit::Levmar;

 $Gh = levmar_func(FUNC=>$Gf);

 $err = levmar_chkjac($Gh,$p,$t);

 $f is an object of type PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func
 $p is a pdl of input parameters
 $t is an pdl of co-ordinate data
 $err is a pdl of errors computed at the values $t.

 Note: No data $x is supplied to this function

The Func object $Gh contains a function f, and a jacobian
jf.  The i_th element of $err measures the agreement between
the numeric and analytic gradients of f with respect to $p
at the i_th evaluation point f (normally determined by the
i_th element of t). A value of 1 means that the analytic and
numeric gradients agree well. A value of 0 mean they do not
agree.

Sometimes the number of evaluation points n is hardcoded
into the function (as in almost all the examples taken from
liblevmar and appearing in t/liblevmar.t. In this case the
values that f returns depend only on $p and not on any other
external data (nameley t). In this case, you must pass the
number n as a perl scalar in place of t. For example

   $err = levmar_chkjac($Gh,$p,5);


in the case that f is hardcoded to return five values.

Need to put the description from the C code in here.

=head2 levmar_report()

=for ref

Make a human readable report from the hash ref returned
by lemvar().

=for usage

 use PDL::Fit::Levmar;

 $h = levmar($p,$x,$t, $func);

 print levmar_report($h);


=head1 BUGS

With the levmar-2.5 code: Passing workspace currently does not work with
linear inequality constraint. Some of the PDL threading no long works
correctly. These are noted in the tests in t/thread.t. It is not clear
if it is a threading issue or the fitting has changed.

 
=cut
=head1 AUTHORS

PDL code for Levmar Copyright (C) 2006 John Lapeyre. C
library code Copyright (C) 2006 Manolis Lourakis, licensed
here under the Gnu Public License.

All rights reserved. There is no warranty. You are allowed
to redistribute this software / documentation under certain
conditions. For details, see the file COPYING in the PDL
distribution. If this file is separated from the PDL
distribution, the copyright notice should be included in the
file.

=cut
=head1 NAME

PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func - Create model functions for Levenberg-Marquardt fit routines

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This module creates and manages functions for use with the
Levmar fitting module.  The functions are created with a
very simple description language (that is mostly C), or are
pure C, or are perl code. For many applications, the present
document is not necessary because levmar uses the
Levmar::Func module transparantly.  Therefore, before
reading the following, refer to L<PDL::Fit::Levmar>.

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    use PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func;

   $func = levmar_func(  FUNC =>  # define and link function

 '
  function gaussian
  loop
  x[i] = p[0] * exp(-(t[i] - p[1])*(t[i] - p[1])*p[2]);
  end function

  jacobian jacgaussian
  double arg, expf;
  loop
  arg = t[i] - p[1];
  expf = exp(-arg*arg*p[2]);
  d0 = expf;
  d1 = p[0]*2*arg*p[2]*expf;
  d2 = p[0]*(-arg*arg)*expf;
  end jacobian 
  ' 
  );

  $hout = PDL::Fit::Levmar::levmar($p,$x,$t,  # fit the data
               FUNCTION => $func,
 );

=head1 FUNCTIONS

=head2 levmar_func()

=for usage

 levmar_func( OPTIONS )

=for ref

This function creates and links a function, ie, takes a function definition
and returns a function (object instance) ready for use by levmar.
see PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func for more information.

OPTIONS:

=for options

 Some of the options are described in the PDL::Fit::Levmar documentation.

 MKOBJ  -- command to compile source into object code. This can be set.
        The default value is determined by the perl installation and can
        be determined by examining the Levmar::Func object returned by 
        new or the output hash of a call to levmar. A typical value is
        cc -c -O2 -fPIC -o %o %c

 MKSO   -- command to convert object code to dynamic library code. A typical
         default value is
         cc -shared -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector %o -o %s
 

 CTOP  --   The value of this string will be written at the top of the c code
  written by Levmar::Func. This can be used to include headers and so forth.
  This option is actually set in the Levmar::Func object.


=head2 call()

=for ref

Call (evaluate) the fit function in a Levmar::Func object.

=for usage

 use PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func;

 $Gh = levmar_func(FUNC=>$fcode);

 $x = $Gh->call($p,$t);

 Here $fcode is a function definition (say lpp code). (This does
 not currently work with perl subroutines, I think. Of course,
 you can call the subroutine directly. But it would be good
 to support it for consistency.)
 
 $p is a pdl or ref to array of parameters.
 $t is a pdl of co-ordinate values.
 $x is the fit function evaluated at $p and $t. $x has the
 same shape as $t.

=for example

 $Gf = levmar_func( FUNC => '
       function	   
       x = p0 * t * t;
     ');

 print $Gf->call([2],sequence(10))  , "\n";
 [0 2 8 18 32 50 72 98 128 162]

=cut 
=head2 new

=for usage

  my $fitfunc = new PDL::Fit::Levmar::Func(...);
  or
  my $fitfunc = levmar_func(...);

=for ref

Generic constructor. Use levmar_func rather than new.

=cut
=head1 AUTHORS

Copyright (C) 2006 John Lapeyre.
All rights reserved. There is no warranty. You are allowed
to redistribute this software / documentation under certain
conditions. For details, see the file COPYING in the PDL
distribution. If this file is separated from the PDL distribution,
the copyright notice should be included in the file.

=cut
