This article explains how to use the Amesim API modules in Spyder IDE. It covers setting up a Python 3.8 environment with Anaconda, tweaking Spyder settings to match a specific Amesim version, and some steps to ensure Amesim APIs work with this setup. Follow along to get Amesim and Spyder working together without any hitches.
Spyder is a popular IDE tailored for Python. It offers a user-friendly workspace with a rich set of tools, like an interactive console, advanced debugging capabilities, and an intuitive editor. Integrating Simcenter Amesim with Spyder can streamline beginners and advanced user's workflow. Instead of switching between platforms, they can use the power of Amesim modules directly within the Spyder environment, making their simulation and modeling automatization tasks smoother and more efficient.
By creating a specific environment for Amesim, you isolate the setup and ensure that any packages you install don't interfere with other projects. The ame_apy module's dependency on Python 3.8 highlights the importance of version-specific environments. This way, when you're using Amesim's tools, you're confident they'll run smoothly without version conflicts.
This is important, because the ame_apy module is a C-extension that requires to be loaded by a Python 3.8 version. This environment will allow us to install our needed modules, in order to avoid to install them directly in the Amesim installation folder.
Spyder relies on the spyder-kernels
package. This package allows Spyder's console to execute Python code, display outputs, and offer debugging capabilities. Without it, the interactive nature of Spyder is compromised.
Additional modules that our scripts require need to be added from here as well (or using the prompt of the new Amesim environment).
Now we need to make Python be able to find and load the Amesim ame_py module and dlls. In order to locate the them we add them to the PYTHONPATH environment variable.
However, this is not enough. The ame_apy depends on Amesim binaries DLLs that need to be found. Normally, these are found in the PATH environment variable, but starting from the Python 3.8, those DLLs search path need no be explicitly added using the add_dll_directory from the os module.
This step is automatically done when using the Python interpreter from the Amesim installation, but here we have to do it because we are using another interpreter. The trick consists in adding a .pth file in the Anaconda environment site_packages directory that will be loaded and executing at start time, in order to:
You can use the following line to populate the amesim_hook.pth file (use the correct Amesim installation path):
Normally, this should allow us to use Amesim modules in Spyder IDE.