IRIS is a free, open-source toolbox for macroeconomic modeling and forecasting in Matlab® and GNU Octave. In a user-friendly command-oriented environment, IRIS integrates core modeling functions (including a flexible model file language which supports an automated code creation, a variety of tools for simulation, estimation, forecasting and model diagnostics, practical techniques for judgmental adjustments, and so on) with a supporting infrastructure (including time series analysis, data management and reporting).
This version of IRIS is a fork of the official IRIS Toolbox as of July 19th, 2014. All the modifications made in the official IRIS Toolbox after that date are disregarded. There is a long-term plan to converge though...
Iris4Octave is tested with the GNU Octave version 4.2.1. There is a plan to check and fix the compatibility of iris4Octave with the more recent versions of GNU Octave. Shall you face any issues, please report them on our issue tracker or directly to iris4octave@ogresearch.com.
Download and install the official GNU Octave version 4.2.1 from the official repository (Windows 32-bit/Windows 64-bit).
If you are on Windows, it's a good idea to allow creating a desktop shortcut during installation as a simple run of octave.exe does not work in most cases.
It's strongly recommended to install MikTeX or another TeX distributive available for your OS. This free typesetting system is used to produce PDF reports in IRIS.
Iris4Octave is assumed to be working with all the recent versions of MikTeX, but given the capacities we cannot ensure it's working with all the MikTeX packages in all the versions of MikTeX. Shall you face any compatibility issue with a particular version of MikTeX do not hesitate to report it on our issue tracker or directly to iris4octave@ogresearch.com.
TO BE DONE JUST ONCE
- Download the latest release of iris4octave archive and store in a temporary location on your drive.
- Unzip the archive into a folder on user's hard drive (preferably without whitespace characters in the pathname), e.g.
C:\IRIS_Tbx. This folder is called the IRIS root. - Open GNU Octave.
- In Octave File Browser please navigate to the IRIS root folder.
- Type the command
iris4octaveinstallin Octave Command Window and press enter.- If no errors were shown in the Command Window during installation process (simple warnings are fine, usually) you should be able to run
irisstartupnow.
- If no errors were shown in the Command Window during installation process (simple warnings are fine, usually) you should be able to run
Don't use command addpath before starting IRIS up (as you might be used to in Matlab), just navigate to IRIS root using Octave File Browser before running irisstartup script.
- Even though GNU Octave has been actively developing to provide you with the most of Matlab's features including Graphical User Interface and compatibility with the basic operating systems like MacOS, Linux and MS Windows, you may still face some troubles working in a particular environment. Should you face any issues please feel free to report it to iris4octave@ogresearch.com.
- You may also find it useful to check out the list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) for GNU Octave users. We would especially draw your attention to the speed issue which is most likely to be adressed in a newer Octave versions and a graphical adapter issue which in most cases can be adressed by updating drivers of your graphical adapter.
- If you've had an older version of the GNU Octave installed on your machine it might happen that newly installed Octave does not start or crash while starting up. In this case you will have to remove
.configfolder from your user directory (usually,C:\Users\<your_username>).