A prototype version of the SoloPy radar display using PySide, which is a set of LGPL-licensed Python bindings for Qt.

SoloPy has been tested with Python 2.7.3, matplotlib 1.2.0, PySide 1.1.2. Some earlier versions may work, however there are known problems with using PyQt under RHEL 6.3 (Python 2.6.6)

Anaconda is a free Python distribution from Continuum Analytics that includes numpy, matplotlib and pyside, among many other scientific computing packages.

Anaconda supports the following platforms:

Linux and Windows: 64-bit and 32-bit Mac OS X: Intel 64-bit Python versions 2.6, 2.7, 3.3

1. Download Anaconda and install according to the provided instructions.

2. Verify that Anaconda Python is first in your path (logout/login, or source ~/.bashrc)

   $ which python /usr/local/anaconda/bin/python

For Mac OS users, the "graphical" version of Anaconda must be first in your path:

export PATH=/usr/local/anaconda/python.app/Contents/MacOS:/usr/local/anaconda/bin:$PATH

3. use the "conda" package manager to install the necessary packages

   $ conda install netcdf4

4. install the SoloPy package:

   python setup.py install cd ~ # don't run run_solopy from the distribution directory

5. For first time users, execute run_solopy to create a default version of ~/solopy_config.xml.

Edit the 'data_dir' parameter to set the default directory for data files

6. run run_solopy to start the SoloPy application

SoloPy also works with Enthought Canopy Basic Edition or above. Enthough Canopy is free for students and staff of degree granting institutions. The Enthought Canopy Express edition will not work - it doesn't contain several packages needed by SoloPy.