9.1. VulcanAI Installation¶

Note

VulcanAI is currently in active development, and new features and improvements are being added regularly. Current version is in Beta stage.

The following section provides step-by-step instructions to install and configure VulcanAI.

9.1.1. Requirements¶

Python 3.10 or higher

9.1.2. Installation via pip¶

Warning

Pip installation will be available soon. Installation from source is recommended until then.

The fastest and simplest way to install VulcanAI is using pip. To do so, open a terminal and run the following command:

pip install eprosima-vulcanai

This will install the latest stable version of VulcanAI and all its dependencies. However, it is recommended to create a virtual environment before installing VulcanAI to avoid potential conflicts with other Python packages.

To create a virtual environment, run the following command:

python -m venv vulcanai_venv && \
source vulcanai_venv/bin/activate

This will create a new virtual environment named vulcanai_venv and activate it. Now, you can proceed to install VulcanAI using the pip install command mentioned above.

If venv or pip are not installed in your system, you can install them using your package manager with the following commands:

sudo apt update && \
sudo apt install python3-venv python3-pip

9.1.3. Installation from source¶

If you prefer to install VulcanAI from source, follow these steps:

Clone the repository in the desired location and navigate to it:

git clone https://github.com/eProsima/VulcanAI.git VulcanAI && cd VulcanAI

Install VulcanAI:
```
python3 -m pip install .
```

Again, it is recommended to use a virtual environment to avoid potential conflicts with other Python packages. You can create and activate a virtual environment as explained in the previous section before running the pip install command.

9.1.4. Verification¶

To check the installation, you can run the following command to see if pip is able to list the package:

pip show eprosima-vulcanai

9.1.5. Running VulcanAI from virtual environment with Vulcanexus¶

VulcanAI python dependencies might conflict with the ones provided by Vulcanexus. To avoid this, it is recommended to create a virtual environment for VulcanAI as explained in the Installation via ‘pip’ section. However, virtual environments have their own Python path, so Vulcanexus ROS packages will not be found when running VulcanAI from the virtual environment. This section explains how to properly fix this to configure the environment to run VulcanAI with Vulcanexus. It also applies to any other Python virtual environments.

To run VulcanAI with Vulcanexus, you need to have a Vulcanexus distribution installed in your system. You can follow the official Vulcanexus installation guide for binaries or docker.

Once you have a Vulcanexus distribution installed and a virtual environment for VulcanAI created, you need to append the VulcanAI virtual environment’s Python path to the PYTHONPATH environment variable. In this way, both Vulcanexus and VulcanAI will be able to find the required Python packages.

To do so, source Vulcanexus and then run the following command in the terminal where you want to run VulcanAI:

source /opt/vulcanexus/${VULCANEXUS_DISTRO}/setup.bash && \
export PYTHONPATH='/<path/to/vulcanai_venv>/lib/python3.x/site-packages':$PYTHONPATH