ActiveState has announced that it is adding three new packages to ActivePython, its open source Python distribution:

• NumPy, a library for scientific and financial computing with Python. It contains a powerful N-dimensional array object, advanced array slicing methods, convenient array reshaping methods and libraries with numerical routines for basic linear algebra functions, basic Fourier transforms and sophisticated random number capabilities.
• SciPy, a suite of scientific tools for Python. It leverages the NumPy library, and it gathers a variety of high-level science and engineering modules together as a single package.
• matplotlib, a Python numerical plotting library that provides production quality 2-D numerical plotting functionality in a variety of hardcopy formats and interactive environments across platforms.

"Python's extensibility and interoperability with other programming languages and numerical libraries makes it an increasingly popular choice, in both the financial and scientific computing communities," says ActiveState's Diane Mueller.

NumPy, SciPy and matplotlib are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.