Python scripting language

Introduction

One main component of itom is the integrated scripting language Python. In order to make itom ready for the future, Python is based on the version-family 3. If you already know Python or already have used Python, you probabily know about the huge functionality which already is provided by Python itself or by one of its various modules, that are available in the internet. The good is, that you can execute the same Python-scripts in itom. There are only few limitations concerning some Python modules (see Python Limitations in itom).

If you are a Python beginner, you probably should have a look at our tutorial page that also contains links to recommended tutorials in the internet:

If you use Python in itom you should consider some tiny limitations, stated in this document:

Python module itom

The main purpose of the embedded Python interpreter in itom is to access the specific functionalities provided by itom. This is done by the Python-module itom, that is importable only in the embedded Python interpreter in itom. This module includes interfaces for hardware and algorithm plugins of itom as well as classes that wrap the most important internal data structures of itom, like matrices (class dataObject), point clouds (class pointCloud) or polygon meshes (class polygonMesh). Additionally the module provides functions to manipulate or extend the graphical user interface of itom as well as to create own dialogs or windows (provided by the class ui and uiItem).

More information about the module itom can be found under:

The full script reference of the module itom`can be found under :ref:`itom-Script-Reference.

Further python packages

Beside the module itom, it is recommended to use the functionalities provided by the Python packages Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib. During the development of itom a high compatibility especially to those modules has been taken into account. For instance it is possible to render the Matplotlib figures in user defined windows, created by the class ui of the module itom (see qtcreator). Additionally, the Numpy array is compatible to the itom internal dataObject or npDataObject.

Other recommended packages are:

  • scikit-image for image processing
  • PIL is the python image library
  • sphinx for creating this documentation

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