1.1 Requirements for AsPyLib

Python

To use AsPyLib, Python 2.6 or 2.7 must be installed on the system.

Later versions (3.0, 3.1, 3.2) are not backward compatible with 2.6 or 2.7 and should be avoided. This is discussed here.

Earlier versions (2.5 and before) might fail due to some function called by AsPyLib that is missing.

Standard Python modules

The following modules must be installed for AsPyLib:

• Numpy (v1.5.0 or higher) - for “Numeric Python” - is a module that allows to handle data in the form of arrays. This useful link gives the correspondance between Matlab and Numpy functions.
• Scipy (v0.8.0 or higher) - for “Scientific Python” - is a module that includes all the complex functions (Bessel, Legendre,...) as well as many other things like Fast Fourier transform, optimisation routines, etc
• Matplotlib (v1.1.0 or higher) is the module used for plotting. It produces very nice figures, as can be seen on the gallery.
• Pywin32 (v2.16 or higher), this module is only required for Windows systems

Windows

On Windows, you only have to install Python(x,y) (click here) to get the right Python distribution and modules.

Linux

On Ubuntu 10.04, Python 2.6 is installed by default.

The following commands:

apt-get install python-numpy
apt-get install python-scipy
apt-get install python-matplotlib

will install Numpy 1.3 and Matplotlib 0.99 which are too old. AsPyLib cannot work with those versions.

So first, remove (if needed) the Ubuntu versions with

apt-get remove python-numpy
apt-get remove python-scipy
apt-get remove matplotlib

Then install newer versions from the sources. To do it install the following

apt-get install python-setuptools
apt-get install python-dev
apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
apt-get install libpng12-dev
apt-get install gtk2-dev
apt-get build-dep python-numpy

Then download the latest Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib versions (.tar.gz) from sourceforge, unzip the archives and in each folder type the following

python setup.py build
python setup.py install

If you get an error message, you are most probably missing a component. To identify the missing part: read carefully the error messages and look for missing file (such as headers .h, compiler, etc). Find what needs to be installed with apt-cache search xxx, or Google. Once this is done, repeat the installation steps until you are successful.

Specific Python modules (starting at AsPyLib v2.0.0)

The following modules are also needed and must be installed separately.

• Astropy (v0.2.3 or higher) can be installed from there. This great module contains in particular Pyfits (standard IO interface with FITS files) and vo.table (to extract information from the VOtable XML files delivered by the Vizier and SkyBoT services).
• Parallel Python (v1.5.7 or higher) can be downloaded at this link. This module allows to implement parallel calculation to speed up the computation for some photometry scripts.

Specific Python modules (versions older than AsPyLib v2.0.0)

The following modules are also needed and must be installed separately.

• Pyfits (v3.0.1 or higher), this module is a standard IO interface with FITS files. It can be installed from there
• Parallel Python (v1.5.7 or higher), this module allows to implement parallel calculation to speed up the computation for some photometry scripts. It can be downloaded at this link
• vo.table (v0.7.2 or higher), this module allows to extract information from the VOtable XML files delivered by the Vizier and SkyBoT services. It is used only in the two functions astro.send_query_vizier() and astro.send_query_skybot(). See here for installation and there for the documentation

The modules Parallel Python and vo.table are only required since AsPyLib version 1.2.0.

Windows

On Windows, the following error may occur during installation of vo.table:

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

This problem is solved by performing the following steps:

1. install Mingw32. It should be already here since it’s installed by default with the Python(x,y) package. Otherwise, see here and there.
2. add the Mingw32 bin directory to the Windows PATH environment variable (something like C:\Program Files\MinGW\bin)
3. log off and log on again so that Windows is aware of the change in the PATH variable
4. edit (create if not existing) distutils.cfg located at C:\Python27\Lib\distutils\distutils.cfg to be:

[build]
compiler=mingw32

Then, re-start the installation of vo.table, now it should work.

The solution was found at this link. In case of any other difficulty, some help can be found quickly on the very active AstroPy mailing list.