What is PDL good for ?
Just in case you do not yet know what the main features of PDL are and what one could do with them, here is a (necessarily selective) list of key features: PDL is well suited for matrix computations, general handling of multidimensional data, image processing, general scientific computation, numerical applications. It supports I/O for many popular image and data formats, 1D (line plots), 2D (images) and 3D (volume visualisation, surface plots via OpenGL – for instance implemented using Mesa or video card OpenGL drivers), graphics display capabilities and implements many numerical and semi-numerical algorithms. Through the powerful pre-processor it is also easy to interface Perl to your favourite C routines, more of that further below.