Software Installation

ExpEYES can run on any computer having a Python Interpreter and required modules. The USB interface is handled by a device driver program that presents the USB port as a Serial port to the Python programs. The communication the expEYES is done using a library written in Python. Programs with GUI have been written for many experiments. Eyes17 software require the following packages

  • python-serial
  • python-numpy
  • python-scipy
  • python-qt4
  • python-pyqtgraph

Any GNU/Linux distributions

Download eyes17-x.x.x.zip (the latest version) from http://expeyes.in and upzip it, and change to the newly created folder. Issue the command

$ sudo sh postinst # set user write permission

$ python main.py

You will get error messages for any missing packages that are required for expeyes. Install them one by one and try again. Python programs required for several experiments are in the same directory, they are called by ’main.py’.

Debian or Ubuntu GNU/Linux distributions

Download eyes17-x.x.x.deb ( the latest version) from the software section of http://expeyes.in and install it using the command;

$ sudo gdebi eyes17-x.x.x.deb

while connected to Internet

The package ’eyes17’ (later than version 3) does not depend on the earlier versions of ExpEYES, like expeyes junior. During installation gdebi will automatically dowload and install all the required packages.

The expEYES Live CD / USB pendrive

The ISO image containing support for eyes17 can be downloaded from HERE. Make a DVD or USB memory stick bootable using this ISO image (Download rufus from https://rufus.akeo.ie to do this under MSWindows)

Switch off the PC and insert the liveCD/Pendrive and switch it on. Enter the BIOS while booting, make the CDdrive/USB hard disk as the first boot device. A desktop will appear and you can start expEYES-17 from the menu Applications->Education->ExpEYES-17. You can also start it from a Terminal using the command:

$ python /usr/share/expeyes/eyes17/main.py

On MSWindows

The first thing to do is to install the driver software for the USB to serial converter IC MCP2200, available on Microchip website (also given on expeyes website). After installing this the device will appear as a COM port, that can be verified from the device manager of MSWindows. After this there are two options.

A zip file containing all the necessary things for ExpEYES is available on the website, named eyes17win.zip. Unzip this file and run main.py from that. By using this method you will not able to write your own Python code to access expeyes, for that you need to install the following

  1. Python-2.x version
  2. python-serial
  3. python-qt4
  4. python-pyqtgraph,
  5. python-numpy
  6. python-scipy

Download the eyes17-x.x.x.zip ( take latest version) from the website. Unzipping the files will create a directory named eyes17, run main.py from that.