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School of Computer Science
& Software Engineering
Computer Vision 233.412

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I take notes during the lectures?

Yes I suggest that you should take notes off the overhead projector. In some cases I will present material that is not in the supplementatry notes. I also believe that you learn better if you take notes rather than passively listening. The process of writing things down reinforces the learning.

The labs link into the lectures fairly closely, hopefully this will also reinforce ideas presented in lectures.

Should I buy MATLAB, how do you buy MATLAB?

There is no real need to get your own copy of MATLAB you have plenty of access through our labs which operate 24 hours per day. However, if you are really keen and want to buy it there are a couple of things you should note.

The student edition of MATLAB Version 6.0 Release 12 is fully functional however, it does not include the signal processing toolbox and image processing tool box. These have to be purchased separately and directly from MathWorks in the US. Personally, I find MathWorks' sales policy a bit puzzling and frustrating.

Approximate Prices:

Matlab Vs 6.0 (Rel 12) Student Edition
$165 from the CoOp bookshop
$151 if you are a CoOp member
$114 from United Booksellers, 126 Broadway, Nedlands.
US$99 purchased directly on-line from MathWorks (Note you cannot access this link from within the CS undergraduate labs as it is outside PARNET)

Take your pick - I know where I'd go!

Signal Processing Toolbox US$29 purchased directly on-line from MathWorks.
(The signal processing toolbox is needed by the image processing toolbox.)
Image Processing Toolbox US$59 purchased directly on-line from MathWorks.

In Australia the student edition of MATLAB is only available for Windows. In the US you can get a Linux version or the Windows version. Again, the MathWorks sales policy is puzzling and frustrating.

Note you should not buy the student edition of MATLAB Version 5.3 that used to be distributed by Prentice Hall. This version is limited to 128x128 matrices - far too small for useful vision work.

What is the MATLAB license used in our labs?

We operate under a Unix workstation license whereby the computer you are operating on has to contact one of the license servers at UCS to get a valid key before being able to run MATLAB. Occasionally the license server at UCS can go down, preventing you from running MATLAB.