Using Matlab functions in C# (2009b)

Matlab has changed a bit of the command “deploytool” in 2009a and 2009b. To see how to use matlab functions in 2009a, see my previous post here.

In 2009b, this has changed a bit and this post will show you how to accomplish the same task in Matlab 2009b.

1. Start Matlab and key in “DeployTools”, Select “.NET assembly”, and the project location and name

    

2. After clicking the OK button…

    
   

3. In the “Build” Tab, Add a class which corresponds to the .Net Class Name, and matlab .m files, each .m file (i.e. a matlab function) corresponds to a method of the .Net Class.

    

4. click the Build button.

   
   Particular note that your project folder structure should be supposedly SIMPLE, and better avoid spaces or less frequently used chars, otherwize, it is very likely to fail in the build process.

5. Now start a C# Winform project, add a reference to the output built by Matlab

    
   In the object brower, you can see that the class “VoronoiCell” appears, and it has two important functions, as expected, with different overloadded prototypes!

   
   What a cool feature!

6. Now, add another assembly called “Mwarray.dll”, located in \toolbox\dotnetbuilder\bin\win64\v2.0 folder.
7. Create a C# project, and test with some code, for instance:

      1: MyVoronoiCell vgc= new MyVoronoiCell();

      2: double[] X = { 0.5, 0, -0.5, -0.2, -0.1, 0.1, 0.1 };

      3: double[] Y = { 0, 0.5, -0.5, -0.1, 0.1, -0.1, 0.1 };   

      4: MWArray[] Results = (MWArray[])vgc.GetVoronoiEdge  

      5:                     (2,    

      6:                     MWNumericArray)X,    

      7:                     MWNumericArray)Y);   

      8: double[,] EdgeX = (double[,])Results[0].ToArray();   

      9: double[,] EdgeY = (double[,])Results[1].ToArray();

8. Now, problem comes. If you run the program, exception will be thrown at Line 1, and there are a few possible cases
   1. {"Could not load file or assembly ‘MWArray, Version=2.9.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=e1d84a0da19db86f’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format."}

      This is mostly due to the absense of MWArray.DLL in GAC, and the simplest solution is to add it to GAC by typing

      gacutil /i MWarray.dll

   2. {"The type initializer for ‘MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Utility.MWMCR’ threw an exception."}, {"Trouble initializing libraries required by Builder NE.\n"}, "   at MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Utility.MWMCR..cctor()", or {"Trouble initializing libraries required by Builder NE.\n"}  or

      {Unable to load DLL ‘mclmcrrtXXX.dll’} or

      MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Utility.MWMCR.mclmcrInitialize(); at MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Utility.MWMCR..cctor()

      For these kind of applications in x86 platform, the solution is to run MCRInstaller.exe to install the Matlab Compiler Runtime, it should work once MCR is installed. Restart OS after MCRInstaller.exe is installed!!! Restart VisualStudio, Matlab!!!

Now rebuild the project, all is fine.