By contrast, if most of the elements are non-zero, the matrix is considered dense.
There is no strict definition regarding the proportion of zero-value elements for a matrix to qualify as sparse but a common criterion is that the number of non-zero elements is roughly equal to the number of rows or columns.
In numerical analysis and scientific computing, a sparse matrix or sparse array is a matrix in which most of the elements are zero. The non-zero elements are shown in black. Its sparsity is 74%, and its density is 26%.Ī sparse matrix obtained when solving a finite element problem in two dimensions. The above sparse matrix contains only 9 non-zero elements, with 26 zero elements.
