Installation

User Installation Guide

This guide will walk you through the process of installing Turboflow via pip. To isolate the installation and avoid conflicts with other Python packages, it is recommended to create a dedicated Conda virtual environment.

1. Ensure conda is installed:

   • Check if conda is installed in your terminal:

   conda list
   

   • If installed packages do not appear, install conda.

2. Open a terminal or command prompt and create a new virtual environment named turboflow_env:

   conda create --name turboflow_env python=3.11
   

3. Activate the newly created virtual environment:

   conda activate turboflow_env
   

4. Install Turboflow using pip within the activated virtual environment:

   pip install turboflow
   

5. Verify the installation by running the following command in your terminal:

   python -c "import turboflow; turboflow.print_package_info()"
   

   If the installation was successful, you should see the Turboflow banner and package information displayed in the console output.

Congratulations! You have now successfully installed Turboflow in its own Conda virtual environment using pip. You’re ready to start using Turboflow in your Python projects.

Installing Additional Solvers

By default, turboflow can use the optimization solvers available in the scipy package. However, a wider range of solvers are available through the pygmo wrapper, including IPOPT and SNOPT. Follow these steps to install additional solvers:

1. Activate your Turboflow Conda environment:

   conda activate turboflow_env
   

2. Install the pygmo package via Conda (currently not available via pip):

   conda install -c conda-forge pygmo
   

3. To access the SNOPT solver through the pygmo wrapper, you need to install the pygmo_plugins_nonfree package. Additionally, you need a local installation of the solver and a valid license. Follow these steps to set it up:

   • Install the pygmo_plugins_nonfree package via Conda:

     conda install -c conda-forge pygmo_plugins_nonfree
     

   • Download the SNOPT solver from the official source and obtain a valid license.

   • Extract the downloaded files to a directory of your choice.

   • Open your .bashrc file and add the following environment variables:

     # Set SNOPT directory
     export SNOPT_DIR="/path/to/snopt/directory"
     export PATH="$PATH:$SNOPT_DIR"
     export SNOPT_LIB="$SNOPT_DIR/snopt7.dll"
     export SNOPT_LICENSE="$SNOPT_DIR/snopt7.lic"
     

     Replace /path/to/snopt/directory with the actual path to your SNOPT directory. These environment variables allow SNOPT to locate the license file and Turboflow to find the SNOPT binary.

   • Save the changes to your .bashrc file.

   • Restart your terminal or run source ~/.bashrc to apply the changes to the environment variables.

   • When installing SNOPT on Windows, your operating system may lack some “Dynamic Link Libraries” (DLLs) required by SNOPT. If this is the case, you can use the Dependencies tool to identify which DLLs are missing. To resolve this issue:

     1. Download the Dependencies tool.

     2. Run the tool and open the snopt7.dll library file.

     3. The tool will display a list of missing DLLs, if any.

     4. Download the missing DLLs from a reliable source.

     5. Place the downloaded DLLs in the same directory as the snopt7.dll library.

By following these steps, you can install additional solvers like IPOPT and SNOPT through the pygmo wrapper, expanding the range of optimization algorithms available for solving performance analysis and optimization problems in turboflow.