ABOUT THE ENGIENERING VIBRATION TOOLBOX:The Engineering Vibration Toolbox is a set of educational programs 
written in MATLAB by Joseph C. Slater. 

Also included are a number of help files,  
demonstration examples, and data files containing raw experimental data. 

The 
codes include single degree of freedom response, response spectrum, finite 
elements, numerical integration, and phase plane analysis. 

It is included 
free with the text "Engineering Vibration" by Dr.  Daniel J.  Inman 
(Prentice Hall, 1994 ...).  The most current version, for use with the professional and student 
versions of MATLAB 4 or later, can be obtained via the Engineering Vibration 
Toolbox home page at http://www.cs.wright.edu/~vtoolbox using NetScape(R), 
NCSA Mosaic(R), Internet Explorer or any other HTML 2.0 capable browser for 
more information. 

Please email me directly at mailto:jslater@wright.edu if you 
have difficulty with this link.

A brief introduction to UNIX and MATLAB is also available in PostScript format 
on the FTP site.

If you have not already installed MATLAB or the Student Edition of MATLAB, 
do so now.

 You should be familiar with MATLAB before running this 
software. 


NOTE TO INSTRUCTORS:
Regular updates are made to the toolbox. 

You can have your name added to 
the announcement mailing list by emailing me at the account below. 

Your 
comments are what make the improvements happen.  

Please send me any 
problems you've developed for the toolbox, 

I'd like to begin a collection 
of problems that better take advantage of its capabilities.


SETTING UP THE TOOLBOX:



The first step is to download the files.  

You can download them 
uncompressed, in TAR/unix, or zip compressed format. 

 Files in the 
uncompressed directory must be downloaded in the following formats:

Text if they end in:  .txt
  .m
  .exa
. Binary is they end in:
   .con   .mat
	.eqn.



In addition, the files can be downloaded in tar and zip formats. 

Free 
utilities exist on UNIX, Windows, and MAC for uncompressing these formats. 
Some of these have been posted to the web site. 

The documentation for the 
code will explain how to uncompress the files. 

Please talk to your 
computer support people if you have difficulty decompressing the files.



The toolbox can go in any directory as long as the Matlab path to it is 
set properly in the matlabrc.m file.  

It should be named "vtoolbox" for 
consistency with other installations.  

Like any of the other toolboxes, you 
should not save personal files inside the vtoolbox directory since you may 
inadvertently lose them when you update (i.e. you may decide to delete the 
directory and replace everything).  

Alternatively, the line  path(path,'full 
path to vtoolbox') can be added to the startup.m file.  

The  startup.m file 
allows users of multiple account systems to customize their  environments 
and paths.  

Note that typing the command 'path' at the MATLAB prompt will 
show all of the directories in the MATLAB path.

Example:
On my mac, my startup.m file contains the command:
path(path,'Math:m_files:vtoolbox:')

On my UNIX system, my startup.m file contains the command:
path(path,'/nfs/valhalla/users26/me/jslater/vtoolbox')

In addition, all of my students have the same startup.m file so they can 
access my files as well. If you do this, make sure you set your UNIX privs 
such that your directory and files can be read by the students:
chmod 755 /nfs/valhalla/users26/me/jslater/vtoolbox
chmod 644 /nfs/valhalla/users26/me/jslater/vtoolbox/*

On my PC (yes, I have a few different machines), my startup.m file is:
path(path,'C:\matlab\toolbox\vtoolbox')

Be aware that PCs are not case sensitive, Macs are quasi-case sensitive, 
and Unix machines are case sensitive. 

The bottom line is save the 
vibration toolbox files in lower case (including the directory), on UNIX 
and Mac machines, and make sure your paths have the correct case. Type the 
"path" command  from the Matlab prompt to check the case of the directory 
structure to other toolboxes installed on your machine.




USING THE ENGINEERING VIBRATION TOOLBOX
The files on this disk will load/run on all platforms if transferred 
properly. Files with the extension .mat, .exa, .con, .eqn, and .out are 
binary files compatible on all platforms. To load them type "load filename 
-mat". 

Files with no extension or the extension .m are text files and must 
be transferred properly to assure that the end-of-line characters are 
correct for your platform. 

Typing 'help vtoolbox' will provide a table of contents of the toolbox. 


Likewise, typing 'help vtb?' will provide a table of contents for the 
files related to chapter '?'. 

Typing 'help codename' will provide help on 
the particular code.  Note that the 'filename' is 'codename.m'.

Engineering Vibration Toolbox commands can be run by typing them with the 
necessary arguments just as any other MATLAB commands/functions.

For 
instance, vtb1_1 can be run by typing "vtb1_1(1,.1,1,1,0,10)". 

Many 
functions have multiple forms of input. 

The help for each function shows 
this flexibility.


CONTACTING THE AUTHOR:
If you have any difficulty, please email me at jslater@cs.wright.edu.

Please visit the Engineering Vibration Toolbox home page at 
http://www.cs.wright.edu/people/faculty/jslater/vtoolbox/vtoolbox.html




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Support for the Engineering Vibration Toolbox has come from a number of 
sources. First and foremost, Daniel J. Inman, who initially tasked myself 
and Donald J. Leo to write version 3 of the software for his text 
"Engineering Vibration" by Dr. Daniel J. Inman (Prentice Hall, 1994). 

I 
also thank the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and the 
College of Engineering and Computer Science at Wright State University for 
providing the computer resources for developing the MATLAB 4 version of 
the software. Perhaps the people who have given the most are my students 
who painfully experienced every piece of beta code, often at the least 
opportune times. 

Thanks is also given to Dr. Maurice Petyt and Robert C. 
Chiroux for their patience in testing numerous 4.0 beta versions of this 
software.




LICENSE:
The Engineering Vibration Toolbox is licensed free of charge for educational use. 
For professional use, users should contact the Engineering Vibration Toolbox 
author directly.




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MATLAB is a registered trademark of the MathWorks, Inc.
Mac(intosh) is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc.
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.
Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.

Joseph C. Slater is the copyright holder of the Engineering Vibration 
Toolbox. Neither the author, Prentice Hall, nor Wright State University 
make any warranty with regard to merchantability or fitness for any given 
purpose with regard to the software. 

All rights are retained. No 
permission is given to anyone other than myself, the MathWorks and 
Prentice Hall to distribute this software in any manner whatsoever.