I am unfamiliar with visual programming. I am writing a program now. I want to show the data my program produces in another visualization program. For example, using a dynamic diagram to show my data, etc. To learn visualization program, what do I have to learn or if there any tools to be recommended? (preferably python related)
There are plenty of very useful libraries available, choosing which would depend on what you want to achieve specifically. An example of a well supported, general python library that has lots of functionality and visual programming tools is plotly. Although I suggest you do some more research.
Related
So, I have been wanting to make my own GUI library for Python 3. And I couldn't find anything anywhere on where to start. So I decided to ask the question here.
Goal:
Be able to make Python Libraries without using other libraries.
Edit:
So, If I was to make a Library in C for Python. How would I go about doing that.
Tkinter is a python wrapper around tcl/tk's GUI toolkit , similar to how PySide/PyQt and wxPython are wrappers around the Qt and Wx C++ GUI toolkits.
If you wanted to build your own from scratch you would have to make use of existing operating system APIs and/or use something cross platform like OpenGL. For a good example of the latter you can look into Kivy, which is built on OpenGL
Different operating systems have different API's for doing GUI's. So how you have to do it very much depends on the operating system. I think one of the reasons that Python uses Tkinter is because it was already ported to different operating systems.
GUI API's are typically provided as shared libraries, often written in or compatible with C.
If you want to use those from Python, you will have to write a Python wrapper for them. For example using ctypes. Doing that requires a significant understanding of (1) Python, (2) ctypes and (3) the GUI API in question. If more than one of these technologies is new to you, I would not recommend taking on such a project.
So I am working on setting up an agent-based model that runs over a geographic map--syria in this case. I tried writing it in python, but the performance is rather slow--even after some optimization tricks. I was thinking that I should shift to just writing the model in C++, but I don't know which visualization packages can incorporate maps? I tend to use gnuplot in C++, but I have not been able to find a way to incorporate a gis basemap in that package. I am not sure if this is possible in VTK or any other packages. I would like to find a way to run my model fast in C++ but not lose the geographic information. Any suggestions?
Perhaps this project could be useful to you ?
http://code.google.com/p/vtk-grass-bridge/
If you can handle your GIS data using GRASS, it seems that project can convert it to something VTK can render, all in one C++ application.
So I actually figured out the answer to this problem and am posting the solution for everyone. The best choice if you are using python, is to just use the mayavi and tvtk packages from Enthought. Mayavi is a gui on top of the C++ VTK libraries. And tvtk is actually a wrapper for python access to VTK objects. So this allows a person to use python GIS packages--like pyshp, Shapely, and others to manipulate GIS objects and then write them to robust and fast mayavi for visualization. At the same time, if you want to stick to C++ then you can still just write your code in C++ using gdal or ogr, etc., and then run your visualization in VTK. This seems a lot easier and more intuitive then trying to run through some other packages like GRASS, QGIS, or ArcGIS.
Here is a good example of this toolset in action.
Example
What makes you believe that a C++ implementation of your model will be dramatically faster? I suggest before being concerned with how you will visualize the results you focus first on what causes your python implementation to be slow. Is it that your algorithm won't scale? If you have tried optimization tricks, what tricks were those and why do you believe they did not work?
It all eventually comes down to machine instructions being executed on hardware, whether those instructions started out as python, C++ , or some other language source code. Unless your python was running fully interpreted all the time I don't think you will find that switching languages alone will cause you to have a fundamentally different performance profile. Premature optimization is still something to be avoided.
I'm building a rendering engine in Python for fun. I need to load 3D scenes. Any standard modern format like DAE, 3DS, or MAX would work: I can convert my files easily between standard formats.
OpenSceneGraph seems to be the most comprehensive and well-maintained solution. It would be ideal to be able to use it in Python without much hassle. Are there working Python bindings for OSG that are easy to install, work on Mac OS X (I'm on 10.8), and are compatible with the latest versions of OSG?
I searched around and came across osgswig (http://code.google.com/p/osgswig/) and PyOSG (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyosg/), but they don't seem to be actively maintained. I don't see any recent activity related to these packages, and it seems that people had trouble running osgswig on OSX. Ideally, I'd like to find something that "just works", without major compilation hassles. I'd like to just install a package and be able to import a module that will let me load COLLADA or 3DS files.
I also came across pycollada (https://github.com/pycollada/pycollada). It seems active, but fairly early-stage. Ideally, I'd like a reasonably comprehensive package that supports specular maps, normal maps, and other reasonably advanced features. Animation would be nice as well.
In summary, I need to load 3D scenes in Python. Bindings for OSG would probably be ideal, because OSG is so comprehensive. But I need something that works on OSX. I would also prefer something that can be installed reasonably easily. Does something like this exist?
Thanks!
Take a look at Open Asset Import Library (short name: Assimp). It is a portable Open Source library to import various well-known 3D model formats in a uniform manner. http://www.assimp.org/
You should loot at panda3D (http://www.panda3d.org/), it's a game engine with extensive python bindings. It has the features you want : http://www.panda3d.org/manual/index.php/Features
I used it for a few years and it was a solid tool.
I made my own fork of a mirror of a clone of the osgswig project for a similar purpose. I have it working with OpenSceneGraph version 3.2.1 on Windows and Mac; and it's likely I will eventually polish it for linux too. I'm already delivering one product to customers based on my version of osgswig, and I'm considering making others. Find my fork here:
https://github.com/cmbruns/osgswig
If others show enough interest, I might be coaxed into creating binary installers for my version of the osgswig module, to make installation easier.
If you just want the easiest OpenSceneGraph bindings for OSG 3.2.1, you can stop reading this answer here. Read on for more of my thoughts for the future.
Though I am maintaining a fork of osgswig (as stated above), I sort of hate SWIG, and I would prefer to use bindings based on Boost.Python, rather than on SWIG. For large, complex C++ APIs, like OpenSceneGraph, Boost.Python can be much more elegant than SWIG, both for the API consumer, and for the binding maintainer (me, and me). I found one project using Boost.Python to wrap OSG, at https://code.google.com/p/osgboostpython/, but the developer is lovingly wrapping each part of the interface by hand, and has thus only completed a tiny fraction of the large OpenSceneGraph API.
Taking that Boost.Python based project as inspiration, I created yet another OpenSceneGraph Python binding project, at https://github.com/JaneliaSciComp/osgpyplusplus. Eventually, I want to use this osgpyplusplus project for all my python osg needs. And I would appreciate help in making it ready. Right now, osgpyplusplus suffers from the following weaknesses, compared to osgswig:
osgpyplusplus is not yet used in any working product
The build environment is tricky to set up, requiring both Boost.Python and Pyplusplus
I haven't paid much attention to osgpyplusplus recently, so it might rust away if I continue to ignore it.
Though osgpyplusplus probably wraps most of the OpenSceneGraph API, there are probably some important missing pieces that won't be identified until someone tries to develop a significant project with it.
It would be a lot of work for me to create a binary module installer for osgpyplusplus at this point, so please don't ask me to.
I want to add scripting capabilities to my application and I just came across python4delphi http://code.google.com/p/python4delphi/, which seems to be stable.
At first sight it looks very easy to use on the developers side, but I couldn't find a way to debug a script. Would be great if I could embed the IDLE IDE in my application, I just have no idea how to do it.
Is there a easy way to add debugging capabilities with python4delphi? Should I use other script engines like pascalScript (seems to have been discontinued)?
Edit: After having a look at PySctipt and pdb I realized that what I am looking is more like a visual editor with embedded debugging and the capability to read python4delphi custom modules (the ones where I export my delphi objects. Being a python noob I have no idea how p4d does this). I am probably asking too much, but would be great to find an implementation of that and not having to code it all from scratch.
Python is really a great language.
But if you need to embed script, with debug, in a Delphi application you should considere Pascal scripting, which is more available in Delphi.
I use the excellent PascalScipt, in the exemples you will see editor, debugger and a lot of other functions.
I have a two years of experience in programming of enterprise application's with Java and Visual Studio, and I'm new in Python and wxPython. So my question is: Can wxPython provide me enough rich GUI to create those same app's? My reason if using Python is in it's diversity, simplicity and fast development of app's. Thank you!
I think it depends on your definition of "rich." I use it and like to think it can make some fairly useful GUIs. Here's a screenshot of a wxPython app to work with sensor data I'm writing right now - not the most elaborate or complicated in the world, but so far it seems fairly intuitive for users:
I find the wxPython docs to be a little sparse at times, but as long as you've got the demo installed and the wxWidgets docs open it's a good toolkit to use.
wxGlade will give you the GUI skeleton. You will still need a separate text editor (I recommend Geany) to fill in the handlers.
I would certainly suggest using Python and its GUI libraries, but only you can really make the decision as to wether you think its better than visual studio or Java. The syntax of Python is very basic and I think many people can agree its a plesure to use when you get your head around it (no curly brackets etc). Python Tkinter is quite a simple GUI library and its ideal for making a basic application. WxPython on the other hand is far more advanced than Tkinter hence a richer user experience. The only problem I have had while using Wx is not being able to find suitable examples on the web to demonstarte how some things are done. Good luck, hope you find what your looking for. Karl
The wxPython demo shows most of the widgets that are available. I suggest that you take a look at this and see whether it will do what you need.