Installation

Once you have Python 3.9 or later, you can install the stable release of p2p using:

pip install pulse2percept

We provide prebuilt wheels for recent versions of macOS (e.g., macOS 14), Linux (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04 LTS), and Windows (e.g., Windows Server 2022). You can find the full documentation here.

Compatibility and Building from Source

While other platforms are not explicitly supported, you may still be able to run p2p with minimal modifications. If pip does not find a prebuilt wheel for your system, it will attempt to install from source.

Note

Building from source requires NumPy and Cython. On Windows, this includes Visual Studio Build Tools.

Supported Python versions:

Python

3.13

3.12

3.11

3.10

3.9

3.8

3.7

3.6

3.5

p2p 0.10

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

p2p 0.9

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

p2p 0.8

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

p2p 0.7

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

p2p 0.6

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Our GitHub Action Runners ensure that p2p works as expected on macOS 14 Arm64, Ubuntu 24.04, and Windows Server 2022.

Note

Having trouble with the installation? Please refer to our Troubleshooting Guide.

Upgrading and Uninstalling

To upgrade p2p to the latest stable version:

pip install -U pulse2percept

To uninstall:

pip uninstall pulse2percept -y

Installing version 0.10.0.dev0 from source

If no prebuilt wheel is available for your system or you wish to contribue to p2p, you will want to install the latest version from source.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you will need the following:

  • Python: You can check whether Python is already installed by typing python --version in a terminal or command prompt.

    The latest development version supports:

    Python

    3.13

    3.12

    3.11

    3.10

    3.9

    3.8

    3.7

    3.6

    3.5

    p2p 0.10

    Yes

    Yes

    Yes

    Yes

    If you don’t have Python, there are several options:

    • If you’re unsure where to start, check out the Python Wiki.

    • Python Anaconda (slow but comprehensive): comes with the conda package manager and a range of scientific software pre-installed (NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, etc.).

    • Python Miniconda (fast but minimal): comes with the conda package manager but nothing else.

  • pip: On some platforms (e.g., macOS), you may have to install pip yourself. You can check if pip is installed on your system by typing pip --version in a terminal or command prompt.

    If you don’t have pip, do the following:

    • Download get-pip.py to your computer.

    • Open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the directory containing get-pip.py.

    • Run the following command:

      python get-pip.py
      
  • NumPy: Once you have Python and pip, open a terminal and type:

    pip install numpy
    
  • Cython (>= 0.28): pulse2percept relies on C extension modules for code acceleration. These require a C compiler, which on Unix platforms is already installed (gcc). However, on Windows you will have to install a compiler yourself:

    1. Install Build Tools for Visual Studio from the Microsoft website. Make sure to select “Desktop Development with C++”, which should include the MSVC compiler libraries. You don’t need to install Visual Studio itself.

    2. Install Cython:

      pip install Cython
      

      If you get an error saying unable to find vcvarsall.bat, then there is a problem with your Build Tools installation, in which case you should follow this guide.

    Warning

    Some guides on the web tell you to install MinGW instead of Visual Studio. However, this is not recommended for 64-bit platforms. When in doubt, follow this guide.

  • Git: On Unix, you can install git from the command line. On Windows, make sure to download Git for Windows.

  • OpenMP (optional): OpenMP is used to parallelize code written in Cython or C. OpenMP is part of the GCC compiler on Unix, and part of the MinGW compiler on Windows. Follow these instructions to get it to work on macOS.

Obtaining the latest code from GitHub

  1. Go to pulse2percept on GitHub and click on “Fork” in the top-right corner (you will need a GitHub account for this). This will allow you to work on your own copy of the code (https://github.com/<username>/pulse2percept) and contribute changes later on.

  2. Clone the repository to get a local copy on your computer:

    git clone https://github.com/<username>/pulse2percept.git
    cd pulse2percept
    

    Make sure to replace <username> above with your actual GitHub user name.

    Note

    A “fork” is basically a “remote copy” of a GitHub repository; i.e., creating “https://github.com/<username>/pulse2percept.git” from “https://github.com/pulse2percept/pulse2percept.git”.

    A “clone” is basically a “local copy” of your GitHub repository; i.e., creating a local “pulse2percept” directory (including all the git machinery and history) from “https://github.com/<username>/pulse2percept.git”.

Building pulse2percept

Assuming you are still in the root directory of the git clone, type the following (note the .):

pip install -e .[dev]

Then from any Python console or script, try:

import pulse2percept as p2p

Important

Make sure you are reading the right version of the documentation: https://pulse2percept.readthedocs.io/en/latest (<– “latest”, not “stable”).

Keeping your fork up to date

Assuming you are working on your own fork, you may want to integrate new developments from the master branch from time to time.

If you have never upgraded your code before, add a new remote repository named “upstream” (you need to do this only once):

git remote add upstream https://github.com/pulse2percept/pulse2percept.git

Then type git branch to make sure you are on the right local branch. Finally, you can “sync” your fork by grabbing the latest code from the pulse2percept master branch:

git pull upstream master

Uninstalling pulse2percept

You can uninstall pulse2percept using pip:

pip uninstall -y pulse2percept

This works for both stable and latest releases.

In addition, if you installed from source, you may want to manually delete the directory where you cloned the git repository that contains all the source code.

Troubleshooting

Cannot install platform-specific wheel

Following recent trends in the NumPy and SciPy community, we do not provide wheels for 32-bit platforms (this includes all Unix platforms and Windows starting with Python 3.10).

The main reason is that p2p heavily depends on NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, and Scikit-Image. Since these packages no longer provide wheels for 32-bit platforms, we cannot either.

In this case, you will have to install p2p from source.

If you are getting this error message for a supposedly supported platform, please open an issue on GitHub.

Python ImportError: No module named pulse2percept

This is usually an issue related to $PATH, the environment variable that keeps track of all locations where pip should be looking for pulse2percept. Chances are that pip installed pulse2percept somewhere outside of $PATH.

You can check the installation location:

pip show pulse2percept

Then add the specificed location to $PATH; see PATH on Windows, PATH on macOS, PATH on Linux.

Error: numpy.ufunc size changed, may indicate binary incompatibility

This issue may arise with older p2p versions, or if one of the p2p dependencies was compiled using an older NumPy version.

Upgrading to the latest NumPy version should fix the issue:

pip install -U numpy

Then reinstall p2p according to the guide above.

Note

Still having trouble? Please open an issue on GitHub and describe your problem there. Make sure to mention your platform and whether you are installing using pip or from source.