XPPLORE: Import, Visualize, and Analyze XPPAUT Data in MATLAB
Matteo Martin, Anna Kishida Thomas, Bard Ermentrout · International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos · 2025
The analysis of Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) dynamical systems, particularly in applied disciplines such as mathematical biology and neuroscience, often requires flexible computational workflows tailored to model-specific questions. XPPAUT is a widely used tool combining numerical integration and continuation methods. Various XPPAUT toolboxes have emerged to customize analyses; however, they typically rely on summary ‘.dat’ files and cannot parse the more informative ‘.auto’ files, which contain detailed continuation data, e.g. periodic orbits and boundary-value problem solutions. We present XPPLORE, a user-friendly and structured MATLAB toolbox overcoming this limitation through the handling of ‘.auto’ files. This free software enables post-processing of continuation results, facilitates analyses such as manifold reconstruction and averaging, and it supports the creation of high-quality visualizations suitable for scientific publications. This paper introduces the core data structures of XPPLORE and demonstrates the software’s exploration capabilities, highlighting its value as a customizable and accessible extension for researchers working with ODE-based dynamical systems.