Scientific computing with Python

Other resources

Example scripts

Some short, annotated pieces of code in Python which will give you a flavour of the wide range of problems that you can tackle by programming with Python

• Analysis of human mtDNA genome. Demonstrates how to open text file hosted online and manipulate text. Download script
• Counting microbial colonies on an agar plate. Demonstrates displaying images and capturing mouse movement and clicks. Requires PyGame. Download script. Example images: (1,2)
• Automatically resizing images in a directory. Demonstrates automated image editing. Requires Python Imaging Library. Download script. Example images: (1,2)
• Rearranging photographs of yeast cultures. Demonstrates automatic creation of directories, copying of files and pasting images together. Requires the Python Imaging Library which you should install first. Also requires some example files which you should store in a folder on your H:\. Copy the text of the script into a .py file in the same folder before running it. Download script
• A window with changing colours. Demonstrates creating windows and drawing text and objects on them using Python. Download script.
• Text to speech. Computer speech for MS Windows via Python. Requires the package pyWin32 which you should install first (for the appropriate version of Python and Windows). It also requires that your computer has the ability to generate sounds (e.g. play music). For this it needs to have a sound card, speakers (and volume turned up!). Download script
• Wordsearch. Text manipulation, creating and shuffling of lists and building arrays with Python. Requires the NumPy package. Download script

Other tutorials

Other online tutorials which are worth looking at if you would like to get a more complete picture of Python's capabilities.

• Richard G Baldwin's Python tutorial
• Alan Gauld's Python tutorial
• Google code univeristy Python class. Includes several video lectures.
• Learn Python in 10 minutes - if you are already familiar with programming, this is pretty good.
• Python tricks - Learn more advanced Python quickly
• Project Euler - Many simple mathematical problems which can be solved by writing short, elegant pieces of code. Other people's solutions become available after you've solved a problem. This site is not dedicated to any specific programming language but Python is popular and so Python solutions are usually available. Since maths problems are easy to state precisely, this is a good way to practise programming.
• Code academy Excellent articles and exercises.
• Python for beginners Well-designed site. Lots of examples.

Interesting packages

• Python Imaging Libaray - for programmatic manipulation of photographs (e.g. microscopy images)
• NumPy (Numerical Python) - for efficient handling of large data objects
• SciPy (Scientific Python) - a collection of algorithms and mathematical tools for scientific analysis in Python.
• matplotlib - Create scientific plots directly in Python.
• PyGame - great for interactive software, capturing mouse motion etc.

Overview ∴ Installation ∴ First Script ∴ Execution ∴ Libraries ∴ Structure ∴ Other Resources

Last updated: April 2013