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Download and Install

This page covers the necessary steps to install and run NIPY. Below is a list of required dependencies, along with additional software recommendations.

NIPY is currently ALPHA quality, but is rapidly improving.

Dependencies

Must Have

Python 2.5 or later

NumPy 1.2 or later

SciPy 0.7 or later
Numpy and Scipy are high-level, optimized scientific computing libraries.
Sympy 0.6.6 or later
Sympy is a symbolic mathematics library for Python. We use it for statistical formalae.

Must Have to Build

If your OS/distribution does not provide you with binary build of NIPY, you would need few additional components to be able to build NIPY directly from sources

gcc
NIPY does contain a few C extensions for optimized routines. Therefore, you must have a compiler to build from source. XCode (OSX) and MinGW (Windows) both include gcc.
cython 0.11.1 or later
Cython is a language that is a fusion of Python and C. It allows us to write fast code using Python and C syntax, so that it easier to read and maintain.

Strong Recommendations

iPython
Interactive Python environment.
Matplotlib
2D python plotting library.

Installing from binary packages

Currently we have binary packages for snapshot releases only for Debian-based systems. Stock Debian and Ubuntu installations come with some snapshot of NiPy available. For more up-to-date packages of NiPy you can use NeuroDebian repository. For the other OSes and Linux distributions, the easiest installation method is to download the source tarball and follow the Building from source code instructions below.

Building from source code

Developers should look through the development quickstart documentation. There you will find information on building NIPY, the required software packages and our developer guidelines.

If you are primarily interested in using NIPY, download the source tarball (e.g. from nipy github) and follow these instructions for building. The installation process is similar to other Python packages so it will be familiar if you have Python experience.

Unpack the source tarball and change into the source directory. Once in the source directory, you can build the neuroimaging package using:

python setup.py build

To install, simply do:

sudo python setup.py install

Note

As with any Python installation, this will install the modules in your system Python site-packages directory (which is why you need sudo). Many of us prefer to install development packages in a local directory so as to leave the system python alone. This is merely a preference, nothing will go wrong if you install using the sudo method. To install in a local directory, use the –prefix option. For example, if you created a local directory in your home directory, you would install nipy like this:

python setup.py install --prefix=$HOME/local

Installing useful data files

See Optional data packages for some instructions on installing data packages.