PyESAPI

"Pi-e-Sappy" for research use only.

A passion project to help accelerate breakthroughs in medical physics research by bringing the power of Python into the Varian API ecosystem. PyESAPI combined with Jupyter Notebook gives you a "command line to Eclipse" allowing you to rapidly prototype your ESAPI scripts or research ideas.

Quick Start (updated July 17th 2024)

• Access your Eclipse 15.5 (or later) TBOX desktop or Varian Innovation Center environment
• Install Python 3.10 or later from: https://www.python.org/downloads/
  • Be sure to check the option to "add python.exe to PATH" (unless you are already managing multiple versions of Python)
  • Note: If you use an older version of Python, your milage may vary.
• Launch "Command Prompt" by searching in Windows menu
• Navigate to a directory where you would like to store your first PyESAPI project using the cd command
• In the prompt, execute the commands:
  • pip install pyesapi
  • pip install jupyter
• Then execute the command jupyter notebook
• Create a new notebook and see below for examples (if you are using a python virtual environment, be sure not to select "root" kernel).

Examples

Jupyter Notebooks (from Developer Workshop 2018)

• Getting Started
• Data Mining
• 10xResearch
  • Stand-alone python script: standalone.py

Additional Resources

PyESAPI wraps the official ESAPI interface, so a majority of the guidance on ESAPI caries over.

• "Online" Help documentation in Eclipse External Beam (under question mark menu in upper right-hand side of the window)

  • 

• Varian API Book - contributions from the usual suspects

• ESAPI Code Samples - full ESAPI projects from previous workshops

• ESAPI Subreddit - active ESAPI community

Known issues

• PyESAPI is not compatible with vscode-jupyter plugin which uses multithreading. ESAPI only allows for single-thread access to objects.
• Python 3.12 may require Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater. If you are using a VIC environment, you can get it with "Microsoft C++ Build Tools": https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/
  • Note: anaconda provieds pre-built binaries for popular packages.

Upgrading

• pip install --upgrade pysapi
  • This will check and upgrade PyESAPI if a newer version is available

Recommended tooling:

Now that you've had a chance to explore the capabilities of PyESAPI, it's time to get more organized. Below are some recommendations on platforms and software to develop with.

• Varian Innovation Center Eclipse environment (or local TBOX)
• VisualStudio Code (lightweight IDE)
• Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge set as default browser (for better Jupyter Notebook experience)
• Git or GitHub Desktop (code repository and open source collaboration)

Development Notes

For those wishing to contribute to PyESAPI or use PyESAPI with pre-released local builds of Eclipse.

Custom ESAPI DLL path

Set custom ESAPI_PATH (to DLLs) before import (bypasses production directory path search)

import os
os.environ['ESAPI_PATH'] = r'C:\Users\CoolKid\Source\Magic\Bin\Debug64'
import pyesapi
# ...

Stub Gen (experimental/under construction)

To create lintable code and enable code completion (in Visual Studio Code at least) we can generate python stubs for ESAPI libs using IronPython...

1. Download and install IronPython (2.7.9 tested to work) in default location (C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.7\ipy.exe).
2. Load ironpython-stubs submodule git submodule update --init (ironstubs)
3. Move to stubgen folder cd stubgen
4. Execute script stubgen.ps1 (if you hit a Pdb prompt, type continue)
5. Commit updates to stubs folder