Installing Python - SaratogaEDD2014/RapidPrototyper GitHub Wiki

Required Modules

Information

Our software is based on a few python resources that must be installed for it to work properly.

1. wxpython - The python version of wxwidgets. This is the GUI framework we use.

2. VPython - A modeling extension for python, loosely based on wxpython. It is used for 3D modeling.*

3. pySerial - Supports connecting to a computer's serial ports. It allows us to communicate with microcontrollers.

Downloads

Make sure Python2.7 is installed. VPython (python visual) includes instructions on installing it and wx together on their website. The PySerial installer can be downloaded from the pypi download page. If that installer does not work, you may try to unpack the tarball with 7Zip using the method described on sourceforge.

Python 3

We developed using python 2.7 because wx-python and VPython were both fully supported. The libraries we rely on do not support Python 3, so we cannot rely on it. For development and product use, we should stick to python 2.7.

*In some instances, I have edited the "visual" module of vpython to work in a more appropriate way for our software. The only real difference is how the display pops up. Switching "myvisual" imports to "visual" should work fairly well. A solution to this will come soon