2. Install the software

The next step is to install the software. Raspberry PiOS Bullseye Lite has been tested.

The BrachioGraph library requires a few additional components. It needs to be run in a Python 3 environment, using Python 3.6 or later. Raspberry PiOS Bullseye will provide Python 3.9 or later.

2.1. Install system packages

You may have some of these installed already, but that shouldn’t matter.

sudo apt install -y python3-venv python3-tk pigpiod libjbig0 libjpeg-dev liblcms2-2 libopenjp2-7 libtiff5 libwebp6 libwebpdemux2 libwebpmux3 libzstd1 libatlas3-base libgfortran5 git

The packages include:

  • venv, for managing virtual environments under Python 3

  • PIGPIO, an excellent library that provides hardware control of the Pi’s GPIO pins - important for accurate timing of pulses. It comes with a Python interface to the lower-level code.

  • various system libraries required by the Pillow Python imaging library

  • libatlas3-base and libgfortran5, required by the Numpy Python mathematics library

  • python3-tk, for the Turtle graphics integration

  • Git

2.2. Set up a virtual environment

Create and activate a Python virtual environment to work in:

python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate

The environment needs to be active whenever you are using the plotter. You can tell when the virtual environment is active from the bash prompt:

(env) [email protected]:~ $

If you need to reactivate the environment, run source env/bin/activate once again, in this directory,

2.3. Clone the BrachioGraph repository

Use Git to clone the BrachioGraph repository from https://github.com/evildmp/brachiograph:

git clone git@github.com:evildmp/BrachioGraph.git

You will need to have set up a public key using ssh-keygen and added your public key to your GitHub account for this to work. Or, you can use HTTPS instead:

git clone https://github.com/evildmp/BrachioGraph.git

2.4. Install Python packages

Pinned versions of the Python packages are listed in requirements.txt in the BrachioGraph directory. Install them by running:

cd BrachioGraph
pip install -r requirements.txt

This will install:

  • Numpy, a Python mathematics library

  • PIGPIO’s Python library

  • Pillow, the most widely-used Python imaging library.

  • tqdm, for the progress indicator while drawing

  • readchar, to allow the BrachioGraph.drive() methods to accept user input

  • pytest, to run the test suite

You only need to install them once in your virtual environment. Next time you activate the virtual environment, you’ll find that they’re still there.