Installing PyVib2

The program can be installed either using the neutral Python distribution utilities (Distutils) or in a platform specific way.

• Platform neutral way
• Mac OS X
• Windows
• Debian and derivatives

Either way you choose, a few optional utilities have to be installed separately. These are necessary to create animations of vibrations.

Warning

As of version 2.0, the program will not run with Python earlier than 2.5.

Note

Administrator privileges are necessary to perform system-wide installations.

Platform neutral way

The program will not work unless the following dependencies are met:

1. Python Megawidgets 1.2+

   a library for a flexible GUI building, based on Tkinter.

2. numpy 1.1+

   the fundamental package for scientific computing.

3. VTK 5.0+

   Visualization ToolKit, a high-level 3D rendering library.

4. Matplotlib 0.98+

   a 2D plotting library for producing publication quality figures.

To test whether these installations have been successful, please execute in a Python shell:

>>> import Pmw
>>> import numpy
>>> import vtk
>>> import vtk.tk.vtkTkRenderWidget
>>> import matplotlib

And finally, install the program itself. To be concrete, the instructions below are meant for a *nix/Linux shell:

• Unpack the installation archive:

  # tar xvfz pyvib2-2.0.tar.gz
  

• Change to the installation directory:

  # cd pyvib2-2.0
  

• Run the setup script (Python magic spell):

  # python setup.py install
  

To start the program:

$ pyvib2

Mac OS X

An “all-in-one” archive for Intel is available for Mac OS X users, all the dependencies are included into that archive and no additional installations are necessary.

• Unpack pyvib2-2.0_mac.zip (Safari usually does it automatically)
• Start PyVib2 from the pyvib2-2.0_mac subdirectory

Note

This version has been “frozen” on Mac OS X 10.5.7 with py2app.

Windows

Windows users can also use an “all-in-one” archive as for Mac OS X.

• Unpack the pyvib2-2.0_win32.zip archive (e.g. with WinZip or WinRAR)
• Start pyvib2.exe from the pyvib2-2.0_win32 subdirectory

Note

This version has been “frozen” on Windows XP with py2exe.

Debian and derivatives

The installation is performed with the Debian package manager (dpkg):

# dpkg --install pyvib2_2.0_all.deb

If there are any unresolved dependencies, use apt-get to satify them:

# apt-get update && apt-get -f install

To start the program:

$ pyvib2

Optional utilities

PyVib2 enables the user to create animations of vibrations in the Animated GIF and FLI format. Windows user should read this.

1. Animated GIF format

   • Netpbm

     graphics tools and converters.

   • Gifsicle

     a Unix command-line tool for creating, editing, and getting information about GIF images and animations.

2. FLI format

   • ppm2fli

     producing FLI animation files.

The ps2pdf program is required for saving PDF files.