Installing Xi-CAM for Windows¶
Installing Xi-CAM requires a few system components to be installed. After successfully installing these components and Xi-CAM, you will be ready to start developing Xi-CAM plugins!
Install python3¶
On Windows, a great way to manage python installations and packages is through Anaconda. Follow their Windows installation instructions, which will install the conda package manager, Anaconda, Anaconda Prompt, and Anaconda Navigator.
Anaconda – A package that provides conda and several common python packages
Anaconda Prompt – A command line shell for managing conda environments and installing packages
Anaconda Navigator – A GUI for managing conda environments and installing packages
Open the Anaconda Prompt program.
Then, create a new environment called xicam. This creates a sequestered space on your system to install xicam and its dependencies without modifying any of your system’s libraries.
Next, activate the environment. This tells the system to use the libraries and applications inside the environment.
conda create -n xicam python=3.8
conda activate xicam
Install Python Qt Bindings¶
Xi-CAM depends on a GUI application framework called Qt; you will need to install one of the python bindings for Qt (PyQt5 or PySide2) in order to run Xi-CAM.
Make sure that you have activated the xicam environment.
In your open Anaconda Prompt window, install the pyqt conda package as follows:
conda install pyqt
Install the Xi-CAM package¶
Now that we have activated a new xicam environment and installed pyqt, we can install Xi-CAM using a python package management tool called pip. Run the following in your open Anaconda Prompt.
pip install xicam
To ensure everything is installed correctly, you can run Xi-CAM as follows:
xicam
Where Do I Go from Here?¶
You are now ready to start developing plugins for Xi-CAM!
To learn about developing plugins for Xi-CAM, see the Quick Start Guide.
Copyable Instructions¶
Anaconda Prompt:
cd ~
conda create -n xicam
conda activate xicam
conda install -c conda-forge pyqt
pip install xicam
xicam