marslab

A library of Python utilities for working with observational data of Mars, especially multispectral image data from rovers. This library does not contain discrete user-facing applications; if you're looking for a clock, a plotter, or an image generator, you've found one of its dependencies.

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged. If the content of your feedback might be covered by the MSL or M2020 Team Guidelines, please email: chase@millionconcepts.com Otherwise, please file an Issue.

installation

We recommend that you use the conda package manager to control your Python environment for this library. We do not officially support use of non-conda Python environments (the setup.py file is included for convenience and install hooks only). If you're already equipped with conda, please create an env for this package using the following commands:

conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate marslab

Otherwise, please follow the rest of the instructions in this file.

step 1: install conda and support software

If you already have Anaconda or Miniconda installed on your computer, you can skip this step. If it's very old and not working well, you should uninstall it first. We definitely don't recommend installing multiple versions of conda unless you have a really strong need to do so.

You can get conda here as part of the Miniconda distribution of Python. Download the 64-bit version of the installer for your operating system and follow the instructions on that website to set up your environment. Make sure you download Miniconda3, not Miniconda2. marslab is not compatible with Python 2.

On Windows, depending on what else you have installed in your environment, you may also need to install Build Tools for Visual Studio, which you can find on this page: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/

step 2: create conda environment

Now that you have conda installed, you can set up a Python environment to use marslab. Open up a terminal: Anaconda Prompt on Windows, Terminal on macOS, or your console emulator of choice on Linux. Navigate to the directory where you put the repository. Make sure you have git installed in your base conda environment:

conda install -n base git

After that completes, run:

conda env create -f environment.yml

Say yes at the prompts and let the installation finish. Then run:

conda env list

You should see marslab in the list of environments. Now run:

conda activate marslab

and you will be in a Python environment that contains all the packages marslab needs.

This library has an additional dependency on Windows that is not currently accounted for in the environment.yml file. Run pip install windows-curses to install it.

Important: now that you've created this environment, you should always have it active whenever you work with marslab.

If you can't activate the environment, see 'common gotchas' below.

common gotchas

• If you get error messages when running a Notebook or other marslab code, make sure you have activated theconda environment by running conda activate marslab.
• If you use multiple shells on macOS or Linux, conda will only automatically set up the one it detects as your system default. If you can't activate the environment, check a different shell.
• If you've already got an installed version of conda on your system, installing an additional version without uninstalling the old one may make environment setup very challenging. We do not recommend installing multiple versions of conda at once unless you really need to.