Informatique / Python / Building Python 2.7.13 with Mayavi 4.5.0 on ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Installing VTK

Installing PyQt

Installing matplotlib, numpy, ...

Installing mayavi

Troubles

There is no ubuntu 14.04 LTS packages for this version, so we must install it using sources.

pict pict

I assume the installation directory /fcopt I choose is writeable (for me), otherwise one have to install as root.

wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.13/Python-2.7.13.tar.xz 
tar -Jxf Python-2.7.13.tar.xz 
cd Python-2.7.13 
./configure --enable-shared --enable-optimizations  --with-ensurepip=install --prefix=/fcopt/python2.7.13 
make 
make install

The command make -j 4 failed with a core dump on my laptop so I only use make command.
The option –enable-shared is needed when building VTK python wrapper.
The option –with-ensurepip=install permits the installation of setuptools and pip packages.

Installed versions are pip-9.0.1 and setuptools-28.8.0.

To correctly use and test this installed python version

export PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/bin:/usr/bin:/bin 
export PYTHONPATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/lib/python2.7/site-packages 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/lib

To test the installation, I use pip to install ipython package:

pip install ipython

The mayavi package requires VTK (with ccmake command) and PyQt package to be installed.

Installing VTK

I have some troubles when compiling version 6.3.0 of VTK, so I install version 7.1.0. I choose as installation directory /fcopt/VTK/vtk7.0-py3.6.0 which is writeable for me.

wget http://www.vtk.org/files/release/7.1/VTK-7.1.0.tar.gz 
tar zxvf VTK-7.1.0.tar.gz 
mkdir VTK-7.1.0-python2.7.13 
cd VTK-7.1.0-python2.7.13 
ccmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/fcopt/VTK/vtk7.1.0-py2.7.13 \ 
       -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON \ 
       -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON:BOOL=ON \ 
       -DVTK_PYTHON_VERSION:STRING=2 \ 
       -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE:PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/bin/python \ 
       -DPYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR:PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/include/python2.7 \ 
       -DPYTHON_LIBRARY:PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/lib/libpython2.7.so \ 
       ../VTK-7.1.0

Then in the ccmake windows, I press configure key [c] twice and then press key [g] to generate ...

make install

After 35mn on my laptops, I can test the VTK python wrapper: one have to add paths to the previously initialized environment variables PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/fcopt/VTK/vtk7.1.0-py2.7.13/lib/python2.7/site-packages 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/fcopt/VTK/vtk7.1.0-py2.7.13/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

and run the python code sphere.py (700 bytes) .

Installing PyQt

We first have to install sip package. The environment variables PATH, PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH must be correctly set.

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyqt/files/sip/sip-4.19.1/sip-4.19.1.tar.gz 
tar zxvf sip-4.19.1.tar.gz 
cd sip-4.19.1 
/fcopt/python2.7.13/bin/python configure.py 
make 
make install

Then we can install PyQt4 package (PyQt5 failed?)

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyqt/files/PyQt4/PyQt-4.12/PyQt4_gpl_x11-4.12.tar.gz 
tar zxf PyQt4_gpl_x11-4.12.tar.gz 
cd PyQt4_gpl_x11-4.12 
/fcopt/python2.7.13/bin/python configure-ng.py 
make 
sudo make install

The make command take about 10mn. I need to do make install as root: the Designer plugin will be installed in

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt4/plugins/designer

To quickly test the PyQt4 package, one can run the python code pyqt4_window.py (339 bytes) .

Installing matplotlib, numpy, ...

I choose to install matplotlib package after the installation of PyQt.

pip install numpy scipy matplotlib

Installing mayavi

pip install mayavi

The mayavi-4.5.0 python package is now installed.

To quickly test the mayavi package, one can run the python code mayavi_boy.py (774 bytes) .

With this installation, I set the environment variables PATH, PYTHONPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH before to use python3, ipython3, ... as follows

export PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/bin:/usr/bin:/bin 
export PYTHONPATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/lib/python2.7/site-packages:/fcopt/VTK/vtk7.1.0-py2.7.13/lib/python2.7/site-packages 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/fcopt/python2.7.13/lib:/fcopt/VTK/vtk7.1.0-py2.7.13/lib 
export MPLBACKEND=Qt4Agg

The MPLBACKEND environment variable is used to set matplotlib backend.

Troubles

When saving a mlab figure in pdf format , I have the following error:
Saving as a vector PS/EPS/PDF/TeX file using GL2PS is either not supported by your version of VTK or you have not configured VTK to work with GL2PS -- read the documentation for the vtkGL2PSExporter class.

rmatique:Python