Getting Started¶
Prerequisites¶
Your platform of choice will need to have the following software installed:
- Python 2.7; Chimera has not been ported to Python3 yet.
- Git;
Installation¶
Chimera currently lives in Github. To install it, go to your install directory, and run:
pip install git+https://github.com/astroufsc/chimera.git
This will clone the official repository and install into your system. Make sure that you have the right permissions to do this.
Distutils will install automatically the following Python dependencies:
- astropy
- PyYAML: 3.10
- Pyro: 3.16
- RO: 3.3.0
- SQLAlchemy: 0.9.1
- numpy: 1.8.0
- pyephem: 3.7.5.2
- python-dateutil: 2.2
- suds: 0.4
Alternative Methods¶
Alternatively, you can follow the how-tos below to install it on a virtual enviroment and on Windows.
Windows using Anaconda Python distribution¶
These steps were tested with Anaconda version 2.3.0.
- Download and install the latest Anaconda version for Windows.
- Download and install git for windows at https://msysgit.github.io/
- Install Visual C++ 9.0 for Python 2.7 (for pyephem package): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44266
- Open the Anaconda Command Prompt and install chimera using pip:
pip install git+https://github.com/astroufsc/chimera.git
- After install, you can run chimera and its scripts by executing
python C:\Anaconda\Scripts\chimera -vv
On the first run, chimera creates a sample configuration file with fake instruments on %HOMEPATH%\chimera\chimera.config
- Optional: For a convenient access create a VBS script named
chimera.vbs
on Desktop containing:
CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run("C:\Anaconda\python.exe C:\Anaconda\Scripts\chimera -vvvvv")
Python virtual environment¶
For those constrained by limited access to their platform, restrictions to the system provided python or any other reason, the python tool virtualenv provides an isolated environment in which to install Chimera.
Install virtualenv;
Go to your install dir, and run:
virtualenv v_name
This will generate a directory named v_name; go in and type
source bin/activate
(See the documentation for details).
From tyhe same directory, you can now proceed to install as described above.