.. _installation:

Installation
============

Up-to-date install instructions for the latest version of mayavi are
always available from links at the Mayavi2_ wiki page.  The following
will give you a good idea of the general installation procedure and a
start on where to look for more information.

.. _Mayavi2: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/MayaVi

Installing ready-made distributions
------------------------------------

:Windows:
     Under Window the best way to install Mayavi is to install a full
     Python distribution, such as EPD_ or Pythonxy_. Note that Pythonxy
     has a `special download
     <http://www.pythonxy.com/dl.php?file=windows/Python(x,y)-ETS-3.0.2.2.zip>`_
     which provides a complete installer for Mayavi and all its
     dependencies and is a much smaller download than EPD or the full
     Pythonxy install.

:MacOSX:
    The full Python distribution EPD_ (that includes Mayavi) is also
    available for MacOSX.  Unless you really enjoy the intricacies of
    compilation, this is the best solution to install Mayavi.

:Ubuntu or Debian:
     Mayavi is packaged in Debian and Ubuntu. In addition, packages of
     the latest Mayavi release for the stable version of Ubuntu are
     available at https://launchpad.net/~gael-varoquaux/+archive .
     Experimental Debian packages are also available at
     http://newpeople.debian.org/~varun/ .

:RedHat EL3 and EL4:
    The full Python distribution EPD_ (that includes Mayavi) is also
    available for RHEL3 and 4.


Requirements
------------

Mayavi requires at the very minimum the following packages:

    * VTK_ >= 4.4 (5.x is ideal)
    * numpy_ >= 1.0.1
    * setuptools_ (for installation and egg builds)
    * Traits_ >= 3.0 (`Traits`, `TraitsGUI` and `TraitsBackendWX` or
      `TraitsBackendQt`) 

The following requirements are really optional but strongly recommended,
especially if you are new to mayavi:

    * Envisage_ == 3.x (`EnvisageCore` and `EnvisagePlugins`)
    * wxPython_ 2.8.x
    * configobj_

One can install the requirements in several ways.  

   * Windows and MacOSX: even if you want to build from source, a good
     way to install the requirements is to install one of the
     distributions indicated above. Note that under Windows, EPD_ comes
     with a compiler (mingw) and facilitates building Mayavi.

   * Linux: Most Linux distributions will have installable binaries
     available for the some of the above.  For example, under Debian_ or
     Ubuntu_ you would need ``python-vtk``, ``python-wxgtk2.6``,
     ``python-setuptools``, ``python-numpy``, ``python-configobj``.
     More information on specific distributions and how you can get the
     requirements for each of these should be available from the list of
     distributions here:

        https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Install

   * Mac OS X: The best available instructions for this platform are
     available on the IntelMacPython25_ page.


There are several ways to install TVTK_, Traits_ and Mayavi.  These
are described in the following.

.. _TVTK: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/TVTK
.. _VTK: http://www.vtk.org
.. _envisage: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Envisage
.. _Traits: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Traits
.. _wxPython: http://www.wxpython.org
.. _setuptools: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools
.. _enstaller: http://code.enthought.com/enstaller
.. _Debian: http://www.debian.org
.. _Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com
.. _IntelMacPython25: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/IntelMacPython25
.. _numpy: http://numpy.scipy.org
.. _EPD: http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php
.. _Pythonxy: http://www.pythonxy.com
.. _configobj: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/ConfigObj/

Python packages: Eggs
-----------------------

First make sure you have the prerequisites for Mayavi installed, i.e.
the following packages:

    * VTK_ >= 4.4 (5.x is ideal)
    * numpy_ >= 1.0.1
    * wxPython_ >= 2.8.0
    * configobj_
    * setuptools_ (for installation and egg builds; later the better)

More details are in the previous section.

Mayavi2_ is part of the Enthought Tool Suite (ETS_).  As such, it is
distributed as part of ETS and therefore binary packages and source
packages of ETS will contain Mayavi2. Mayavi releases are almost always
made along with an ETS release.  You may choose to install all of ETS or
just Mayavi2 alone from a release. 

ETS has been organized into several different Python packages.  These
packages are distributed as Python Eggs_.  Python eggs are fairly
sophisticated and carry information on dependencies with other eggs.  As
such they are rapidly becoming the standard for distributing Python
packages.

There are primarily two ways to use ETS eggs.
 
  1. The first and easiest is to use pre-built eggs built for your
     particular platform.  More instructions on this are below. 

  2. The second is to build the eggs from the source tarballs.  This is
     also fairly easy to do if you have a proper build environment.

To install eggs, first make sure the requirements are installed, and
then build and install the eggs like so::

 $ easy_install "Mayavi[app]" 

This one command will download, build and install all the required
ETS related modules that mayavi needs for the latest ETS release.
If you run into trouble please check the `Enthought Install`_ pages.

One common sources of problems during an install, is the presence of
older versions of packages such as traits, mayavi, envisage or tvtk.
Make sure that you clean you ``site-packages`` before installing a new
version of Mayavi. Another problem often encountered is running into
what is probably a bug of the build system that appears as a "sandbox
violation". In this case, it can be useful to try the download and
install command a few times.

Given this background please see the following:

  * `Enthought Install`_ describes how ETS can be installed with eggs.
    Check this page first.  It contains information on how to install
    the prebuilt binary eggs for various platforms along with any
    dependencies.



.. _Eggs: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs
.. _Enthought Install: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/Install
.. _ETS: http://code.enthought.com/ets

The bleeding edge: SVN
----------------------

If you want to get the latest development version of Mayavi, we
recommend that you check it out from SVN.  Mayavi depends on several
packages that are part of ETS.  It is highly likely that the
in-development mayavi version may depend on some feature of an as yet
unreleased component.  Therefore, it is very convenient to get all the
relevant ETS projects that mayavi recursively depends on in one single
checkout.  In order to do this easily, Dave Peterson has created a
package called ETSProjectTools_.  This must first be installed and then
any of ETS related repositories may be checked out.  Here is how you can
get the latest development sources.

 1. Install ETSProjectTools_ like so::

     $ svn co https://svn.enthought.com/svn/enthought/ETSProjectTools/trunk \
            ETSProjectTools
     $ cd ETSProjectTools
     $ python setup.py install

    This will give you the useful scripts ``ets``.  For more details on
    the tool and various options check the ETSProjectTools_ wiki page.

 2. To get just the sources for mayavi and all its dependencies do this::

      $ ets co "Mayavi[app]"

    This will look at the latest available mayavi, parse its ETS
    dependencies and check out the relevant sources.  If you want a
    particular mayavi release you may do::

      $ ets co "Mayavi[app]==3.0.1"

    If you'd like to get the sources for an entire ETS release do this
    for example::

      $ ets co "ets==3.0.2"

    This will checkout all the relevant sources from SVN.  Be patient,
    this will take a while.  More options for the ``ets`` tool are
    available in the ETSProjectTools_ page.

 3. Once the sources are checked out you may either do an::
    
        $ ets develop

    This will  install all the checked out sources via a ``setup.py
    develop`` applied to each package.  
 
 4. Alternatively, you may want to build binary eggs, of the sources.
    The ``ets bdist`` command can be used to build eggs like so (here we
    assume that ``ets co`` checked out the sources into ``ets-3.0.3``)::

      $ cd ets-3.0.3
      $ ets bdist

    This will build all the eggs and put them inside a ``dist``
    subdirectory.  Run ``ets bdist -h`` for more bdist related options.
    The mayavi development egg and its dependencies  may be installed
    via::

      $ easy_install -f dist "Mayavi[app]"

    Alternatively, if you'd like just ``Mayavi`` installed via
    ``setup.py develop`` with the rest as binary eggs you may do::

      $ cd Mayavi_x.y.z
      $ python setup.py develop -f ../dist

    This will pull in any dependencies from the built eggs.

You should now have the latest version of Mayavi installed and usable.

.. _ETSProjectTools: https://svn.enthought.com/enthought/wiki/SVNScripts 


Testing your installation
-------------------------

The easiest way to test if your installation is OK is to run the mayavi2
application like so::

 mayavi2

To get more help on the command try this::

 mayavi2 -h

``mayavi2`` is the mayavi application.  On some platforms like win32
you will need to double click on the ``mayavi2.exe`` program found in
your ``Python2X\Scripts`` folder.  Make sure this directory is in your
path.

.. note::
  Mayavi can be used in a variety of other ways but the ``mayavi2``
  application is the easiest to start with.

If you have the source tarball of mayavi or have checked out the sources
from the SVN repository, you can run the examples in
``enthought.mayavi*/examples``.  There are plenty of example scripts
illustrating various features.  Tests are available in the
``enthought.mayavi*/tests`` sub-directory.


Troubleshooting
----------------

If you are having trouble with the installation you may want to check
the :ref:`getting-help` page for more details on how you can search for
information or email the mailing list.

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