A practical approach to metaheuristics using LabVIEW and MATLAB® Metaheuristic optimization has become a prime alternative for solving complex optimization problems in several areas. Hence practitioners and researchers have been paying extensive attention to those metaheuristic algorithms that are mainly based on natural phenomena. However when those algorithms are implemented there are not enough textbooks that deal with theoretical and experimental problems in a friendly manner so this textbook presents a novel structure which includes a complete description of the most important metaheuristic optimization algorithms as well as a new proposal of a new metaheuristic optimization named earthquake optimization. Besides this textbook also has several practical exercises. In addition a Toolbox for Matlab and a Toolkit for LabVIEW are integrated as a complementary material of this book. Those toolkits allow readers to move from a simulation environment to an experimentation one very fast. This textbook is suitable for researchers students and professionals in several areas as economics architecture computer science electrical engineering control system and so on