The package NumericalAlgebraicGeometry, also known as NAG4M2 (Numerical Algebraic Geometry for Macaulay2), implements methods of polynomial homotopy continuation to solve systems of polynomial equations and describe positive-dimensional complex algebraic varieties.

• The basic components of homotopy continuation are implemented in the core of Macaulay2 in C++; the main methods of the package use this fast implementation.
• For selected methods the package provides an alternative: the user can choose to outsource computation to an external software, Bertini or PHCpack, provided these are installed in the system.

A version of the package (see current documentation) is distributed with the latest version of Macaulay2.

To use NumericalAlgebraicGeometry follow step 1 (optional steps 2 and 3 get the most up-to-date front end, step 4 gets the developer's version):

1. download and install Macaulay2
2. clone Macaulay2 source code from this M2 github repository fork: https://github.com/antonleykin/M2 (branch NAG),

   git clone -b NAG https://github.com/antonleykin/M2.git

3. make sure M2 packages are loading from the M2/Macaulay2/packages/ directory of the source code above: change "path", e.g.

   path = {"directory-where-you-cloned/M2/Macaulay2/packages/"} | path

   If you wish to have the line above automatically executed at the beginning of every M2 session, edit init.m2 (located in ~/.Macaulay2/ on Linux systems).
4. compile an M2 executable from the source code (the latest distributed M2 executable should work for most things).

Useful Macaulay2 commands to get started:

needsPackage "NumericalAlgebraicGeometry"

viewHelp NumericalAlgebraicGeometry

help NumericalAlgebraicGeometry