Installation¶

Note

NaviNIBS is tested on Windows 11. It may work on other platforms, but some features (e.g. 3D renderering parallelization) are known not to work on macOS. The instructions below assume you are using Windows.

Install Python¶

Note

NaviNIBS is tested on Python 3.13. More recent versions may or may not work.

Download and install Python. Version 3.13 is recommended. The instructions below assume you have installed this version of Python to the default location on Windows, which is %LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python313.

Install core NaviNIBS¶

Recommended: use a Python “virtual environment” to keep all the dependencies for NaviNIBS self-contained such that they won’t interact with other Python tools on your computer.

Open a Windows command prompt and type the following (after the >) to create the virtual environment:

...>%LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python313\python -m venv %LocalAppData%\NaviNIBS\NaviNIBS-env

For this install, and anytime you need to update any dependencies or launch NaviNIBS from the command line, activate the virtual environment with:

...>%LocalAppData%\NaviNIBS\NaviNIBS-env\Scripts\activate
(NaviNIBS-env)...>

Install NaviNIBS and its dependencies by typing:

(NaviNIBS-env)...>pip install NaviNIBS

(NaviNIBS-env)...>pip install git+https://github.com/precisionneurolab/navinibs@dev

You can now launch NaviNIBS by typing navinibs in the command prompt:

(NaviNIBS-env)...>navinibs

If you would like to launch NaviNIBS from the desktop, you can run the following to create a system shortcut (e.g. an icon on the desktop and in the Start Menu on Windows):

(NaviNIBS-env)...>navinibs --createShortcut

Clicking on the resulting icon should open the NaviNIBS GUI to a blank session.

If you would like to launch NaviNIBS from a folder, you can create a .bat script shortcut to open the virtual environment and launch NaviNIBS. Create a new text file called LaunchNaviNIBS.bat and paste the following text:

@echo off
setlocal
call %LocalAppData%\NaviNIBS\NaviNIBS-env\Scripts\activate.bat
title NaviNIBS
navinibs
deactivate
endlocal

Save and then double click the .bat file. You should see a command window and then the NaviNIBS GUI open to a blank session.

Install NaviNIBS addons¶

Published addons can be installed using pip. For example, to install the NaviNIBS-Simulated-Tools addon, type:

(NaviNIBS-env)...>pip install NaviNIBS-Simulated-Tools

Install other dependencies¶

Depending on which tracking hardware you are using, see the following sections for additional details: