Installing pyFormex — pyFormex v0.8.6 documentation

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# Installing pyFormex

Abstract

This document explains the different ways for obtaining a running pyFormex installation. You will learn how to obtain pyFormex, how to install it, and how to get it running.

## Choose installation type

There are several ways to get a running installation of pyFormex, and you may choose the most appropriate method for you, depending on your needs, your current infrastructure and your computer knowledge. We will describe them in detail in this document, and advice you on which method might be the best in your case.

Note

pyFormex on non-Linux systems

pyFormex is being developed on GNU/Linux systems, and most users run it on a GNU/Linux platform. The Running pyFormex on non-Linux systems section holds information on how pyFormex can be run on other platforms.

Let’s first give you an overview of the most important pros and cons of the different install methods.

Official release:

PROS | CONS
--- | ---
Stable Well supported Easy install procedure Site-wide install | GNU/Linux required Root access required Installation of prerequisites required May be missing latest features

Alpha release:

PROS | CONS
--- | ---
Easy install procedure Site-wide install | GNU/Linux required Root access required Installation of prerequisites required Latests features

Development version:

PROS | CONS
--- | ---
Latest features No root access required | GNU/Linux required No install procedure (Usually) single user install Manual installation of prerequisites (and root access) may be required Less stable

BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system:

PROS | CONS
--- | ---
No GNU/Linux required No root access required No installation required Stable version Easily portable | Missing latest features Difficult to upgrade Somewhat slower loading

To sum it up:

- Unless you want to help with the development, or you absolutely need some of the latest features or bugfixes, or you just can not meet the requirements, the latest Official release is what you want to go for. It gives you the highest degree of stability and support and comes packed in an archive, with an install procedure included.
- If you need some recent feature of pyFormex that is not yet in an official release, you may be lucky to find it in the latest Alpha release.
- If the install procedures do not work for you, or you need the absolutely latest development code, you can run pyFormex directly from the anonymously checked out Development version.
- Finally, if you do not have enough permissions to install the prerequisites, or if you do not have a GNU/Linux system in the first place, or if you just want to try out pyFormex without having to install anything, or if you want a portable system that can you take with you and run anywhere, choose for the BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system on USB stick.

## Official release

pyFormex is software under development, and many users run it directly from the latest development sources. This holds a certain risk however, because the development version may at times become unstable or incompatible with previous versions and thus break your applications. At regular times we therefore create official releases, which provide a more stable and better documented and supported version, together with an easy install procedure.

If you can meet the requirements for using an officially packed release, this is the recommended way to install pyFormex. All the software packages needed to run pyFormex can be obtained for free.

To install an official pyFormex release, you need a working GNU/Linux system, root (administrator) privileges to the system, and you need to make sure that the prerequisite packages are installed on the system.

If you need to install a new GNU/Linux system from scratch, and have the choice to pick any distribution, we highly recommend Debian GNU/Linux or derivatives. This is because most of the pyFormex development is done on Debian systems, and we will give you precise install instructions for this system. Also, the Debian software repositories are amongst the most comprehensive to be found on the Internet.

Most popular GNU/Linux distributions provide appropriately packed recent versions of these prerequisites, so that you can install them easily from the pacakge manager of your system. In case a package or version is not available for your system, you can always install it from source. We provide the websites where you can find the source packages.

### Prerequisites

In order to install an official release package of pyFormex, you need to have the following installed (and working) on your computer:

Python (http://www.python.org)
  Version 2.4 or higher (2.5 is recommended). Nearly all GNU/Linux distributions come with Python installed, so this should not be no major obstacle.
NumPy (http://www.numpy.org)
  Version 1.0-rc1 or higher. NumPy is the package used for efficient numerical array operations in Python and is essential for pyFormex.
Qt4 (http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt)
  The widget toolkit on which the pyFormex Graphical User Interface (GUI) was built.
PyQt4 (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/index.php)
  The Python bindings for Qt4.
PyOpenGL (http://pyopengl.sourceforge.net/)
  Python bindings for OpenGL, used for drawing and manipulating the 3D-structures.

If you only want to use the Formex data model and transformation methods and do not need the GUI, then NumPy is all you need. This could e.g. suffice for a non-interactive machine that only does the numerical processing. The install procedure however does not provide this option yet, so you will have to do the install by hand. Currently we recommend to install the whole package including the GUI. Most probably you will want to visualize your structures and for that you need the GUI anyway.

Additionally, we recommend you to also install the GNU C-compiler and the Python and OpenGL header files. The install procedure needs these to compile the pyFormex acceleration library. While pyFormex can run without the library (Python versions will be substituted for all functions in the library), using the library will dramatically speed up some low level operations such as drawing, especially when working with large structures .

#### Installing prerequisites on Debian GNU/Linux

Debian users should just have to install the packages `python-numpy` and `python-qt4-gl`. The latter will install `python-qt4` and `python-qt4-gl` as dependencies. Also, for compiling the acceleration library, you should install `python-dev`, `python-qt4-dev` and `libglu1-mesa-dev`.

Other optional packages that might be useful are `admesh`, `python-scipy`, `python-numpy-ext`, `units`.

### Download pyFormex

Official pyFormex releases can be downloaded from this website: Releases. As of the writing of this manual, the latest release is 0.8.4.

pyFormex is currently distributed in the form of a .tar.gz (tarball) archive. See Install pyFormex for how to proceed further with the downloaded file.

### Install pyFormex

Once you have downloaded the tarball, unpack it with the command

    tar xvzf pyformex-VERSION.tar.gz

where you replace `VERSION` with the correct version from the downloaded file. Then go to the created pyformex directory

    cd pyformex-VERSION

and execute the following command with root privileges:

    python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local

This will install pyFormex under `/usr/local/`. You can change the prefix to install pyFormex in some other place.

The installation procedure installs everything into a single directory, and creates a symlink to the executable in `/usr/local/bin`. You can use the command

    pyformex --whereami

to find out where pyFormex is installed.

Finally, a pyFormex installation can usually be removed by giving the command

    pyformex --remove

and answering ‘yes’ to the question. You may want to do this before installing a new version, especially if you install a new release of an already existing version.

### Install additional software

pyFormex uses a large number of external software packages to enhance its functionality. Some of these packages are so essential, that they were listed as requirements. Others however are merely optional packages: interesting for those users who need them, but not essential for everybody. The user has the choice to install these extras or not.

Some external packages however do not come in an easy to install package, or the available packaged formats do not collaborate well with pyFormex. Therefore, we have created a set of dedicated install script to ease the installation of these external packages. Currently, there is an install procedure for the following packages:

Warning

We provide these installation procedures for your convenience, but take no responsibility for them working correctly.

gl2ps
  This package allows to save the OpenGL rendering to a file in vector format. Currently supported are `eps`, `pdf` and `svg`. Our install procedure provides the necessary Python interface and installs the gl2ps library at the same time.
gts
  This package (Gnu Triangluted Surfaces) implements a library of powerful functions for operating on triangulated surface models. It also delivers some example programs built with the library. The pyFormex `surface` plugin uses these for many of its functions. Because the examples programs are usually not installed from distribution specific binary packages, and pyFormex uses customized names for them, we advise you to use our install procedure.
tetgen
  This package provides a high quality tetrahedral mesher. pyFormex has some import and export functions for the specific `tetgen` file formats. Since `tetgen` is only distributed in source form, we provide this install procedure to help with the compile/install.
calpy
  Calpy is an experimental package that provides efficient Finite Element simulations through a Python interface. It does this by calling into a library of compiled Fortran routines. There is currently no distribution to the general public yet, but this install procedure grabs the source from our local FTP server, compiles the library and creates the Python interface. pyFormex comes with some examples that use Calpy as a simulatiopn tool.

To install any of these packages, proceed as follows. Go to the directory where you unpacked the pyFormex distribution: `cd pyformex-version`. Then go to the `pyformex/external` subdirectory, where you will find a subdirectory for each of the above packages. Go into the directory of the package you wish to install and execute the following command (with root privileges): `./PACKAGENAME.install all`

All these procedures will install under `/usr/local`. If you wish to change this, you will have to change the install procedure. The install procedures can also be sued to perform only part of the installation process. Thus, `./PACKAGENAME.install get unpack` will only download and unpack that package. See the README files and the install procedures themselves for more info.

## Alpha release

Official release are only created a couple of times per year, because they require a lot of testing. pyFormex is however developing fast, and as soon as an official release has been made, new features are already being included in the source repository. Sometimes, you may be in need of such a feature, that will only become officially available within several months. Between successive official releases, we create interim alpha releases. They are less well tested (meaning they may contain more bugs) and supported than the official ones, but they may just work well for you.

These alpha releases can be downloaded from the developer FTP site or from our local FTP server. The latter may be slower, but you may find there some old releases or release candidates that are not available on the official server.

They install just like the Official release.

## Development version

If the install procedures for the packaged releases do not work for you, or if you want to have the absolutely latest features and bug fixes, then you can run pyFormex directly from the development sources. Obviously, the pyFormex developers use this method, but there are also several normal users who prefer this, because it allows for easy updating to the latest version.

To run pyFormex from the development sources you need to have the same prerequisites installed as for the Official release. Furthermore, you need the Subversion revision control system. You can check whether you have it by trying the command `svn help`. If you do not have the command, you should install Subversion first. Debian and Ubuntu users can just do `apt-get install subversion`.

Now you can anonymously check out the latest pyFormex version from the Source code repository at the Project page. You can do this with the command

    svn co svn://svn.savannah.nongnu.org/pyformex/trunk/pyformex MYDIR

in which you replace `MYDIR` with the path name of a directory where you have write permission. Most users choose `~/pyformex` as the checkout directory, but this is not required. You can even check out different versions under different path names. If you leave out the `MYDIR` from the above command, a new directory `pyformex` will be created in the current path.

Now change into the created `MYDIR` directory and execute the command `./pyformex`. The latest pyFormex version should startup. The acceleration library will however not be available yet. To create the library, goto to the `lib` subdirectory and execute the command `./configure;make`.

You can make the `pyformex` command in your checked out tree executable from anywhere by creating a symlink under one of the directories in you `PATH` setting. An example command to achieve this: `ln -sfn MYDIR/pyformex/pyformex /home/user/bin`

You can update this pyFormex installation at any time to the latest version by issuing the command `svn update` in your `MYDIR/pyformex` directory. You can even roll back to any older revision of pyFormex. Just remember that after updating your sources, the compiled library could be out of sync with your new sources. Rebuild the library just like specified above.

## BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system

If you do not have access to a running GNU/Linux system, or if the above installation methods fail for some unknown reason (remember, you can ask for help on the pyFormex Support tracker), you can still run pyFormex by using a Bumpix Live GNU/Linux system. Bumpix Live is a full featured Debian GNU/Linux system including pyFormex that can be run from a single removable medium such as a CD or a USB key. Installation instructions can be found in BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system.

Alternatively,

- if you do not succeed in properly writing the image to a USB key, or
- if you just want an easy solution without any install troubles, or
- if you want to financially support the further development of pyFormex, or
- if you need a large number of pyFormex USB installations,

you may be happy to know that we can provide ready-made BuMPix USB sticks with the `pyformex.org` logo at a cost hardly exceeding that of production and distribution. If you think this is the right choice for you, just email us for a quotation.

Further guidelines for using the BuMPix system can be found in BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system.

## Running pyFormex on non-Linux systems

pyFormex is being developed on GNU/Linux platforms, and most of its users run pyFormex on a GNU/Linux system. Because of that, there is no installation procedure to run pyFormex natively on other systems.

Currently, the easiest way to run pyFormex on a non-Linux system is by using the BuMPix Live GNU/Linux system. We use this frequently with large groups of students in classes having only Windows PCs. We also have some professional users who could no install GNU/Linux due to corporate regulations, that are working this way.

Another possibility is to run a virtual GNU/Linux instance on the platform. There is currently quite good virtualization software available for nearly any platform.

However, as all the essential underlying packages on which pyFormex is built are available for many other platforms (including Windows, Mac), it is (in theory) possible to get pyFormex to run natively on non-Linux platforms. There has already been a successful attempt with a rather old version, but with recent versions nobody has (yet) taken the bother to try it.

Note

pyFormex on Windows Lately there have been some successful attempts to get the basic functionality of pyFormex running on Windows. Thomas Praet has compiled this document on how to proceed. Submit a request on the Support tracker if you need any help.

There may be a few things that have to be changed to successfully run pyFormex on other platforms (especially on Windows), but it should all be rather obvious. If you have some programming experience on your platform, and you want to give it a try, please do so. We certainly are willing to help where we can. And we are certainly interested in feedback about your attempt, whether successful or not.

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