para-atm

Introduction

para-atm is a Python package that provides tools for analysis of the national air transportation system. The project stems from the Prognostic Analysis and Reliability Assessment Laboratory (PARA) at Arizona State University.

Installation

In short, the steps are:

• Install Python 3
• Clone or download para-atm
• From the base directory, run: python setup.py develop

Additional steps may be required on Windows. The following sections provide further details.

Install Python

The first step is to install Python 3 on the system. para-atm requires Python >= 3.6 and has been tested with Python 3.6 and 3.7.

Ubuntu Linux

On Ubuntu 18, this can be done using:

sudo apt install python3

Windows

There are different ways to install Python on Windows. One approach is to use the Anaconda distribution. In particular, the "miniconda" installation provides a minimal install, to which further packages can be added as necessary: https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html. With Anaconda on Windows, it is common to use the default settings that do not add Python to the system PATH environment variable, in which case all Python commands are then done within the special command prompt provided by Anaconda.

Virtual environments

Although not strictly necessary, it is recommended to create a Python virtual environment for para-atm. This way, all packages that are installed by para-atm are isolated and will not interfere with packages that may be needed for other projects.

Virtual environment on Linux

These steps should apply to any Linux distribution. We will install the virtual environment within a directory named venv under the home directory, and the virtual environment will be named para-atm. However, any name and location for the virtual environment may be used.

python3 -m venv ~/venv/para-atm

The above command creates the new virtual environment. To activate the virtual environment, run:

source ~/venv/para-atm/bin/activate

Upon activation, the command prompt will change to show the name of the virtual environment. The above command can be added to the ~/.bashrc file to automatically activate the virtual environment each time a new terminal is started. To deactivate the virtual environment, type deactivate.

Virtual environment on Windows using Anaconda

Although the above approach can be used on Windows as well (see https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/venv.html for Windows-specific information), Anaconda provides functions that make virtual environments more convenient. From the Anaconda prompt, use:

conda create --name para-atm python=3.7

The virtual environment can then be activated directly, with no need to specify the path:

conda activate para-atm

See https://docs.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/tasks/manage-environments.html for more information about working with virtual environments in Anaconda.

Install para-atm Python package

Installation is handled via the setup.py script in the base directory. If using a virtual environment, activate the appropriate virtual environment as described above. Then navigate to the base directory of the code and run the following command:

python setup.py develop

The develop command is similar to install, but instead of copying files into the installation directory, it creates a link to the source files. This way, there is no need to reinstall when changes are made to para-atm.

If the installation is not being performed within a virtual environment, the following command is recommended:

python setup.py develop --user

The --user flag ensures that the dependencies installed by para-atm do not interfere with system-wide Python packages installed via the package manager (i.e., apt install).

On Ubuntu 18, if the installation is not performed within a virtual environment, it will be necessary to replace the python command with python3. This is because by default, python refers to python2 on this system.

Package dependencies on Windows

Some additional steps may be required if using Windows. This is because some of the Python packages that para-atm depends on require compilation. Running setup.py will try to install these dependencies automatically using pip, if they are not already installed. This may produce the following error:

error: Setup script exited with error: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 is required. Get it with "Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools": https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/

There are two options. One is to install the Microsoft Build tools as indicated by the error message. Once installed, it should be possible for setup.py to install the dependencies.

The second option is to install the dependencies manually using Anaconda, which provides versions of the packages that have already been compiled. This can be done by first activating the virtual environment and then running:

conda install -c conda-forge jpype=0.6.3 numpy pandas bokeh matplotlib pyclipper sklearn

Some care is needed with this option to avoid conflicts between conda and pip. If a failed install via setup.py was already attempted, it may be necessary to delete and recreate the virtual environment prior to issuing the conda install commands.

(Todo: Further review should be done to identify specifically which packages require compilation. It may only be necessary to install one or two of the packages using conda.)

Install GNATS (optional)

Installation of the GNATS (Generalized National Airspace Trajectory-Prediction System) software is optional. Refer to the GNATS documentation for installation information.

On Ubuntu Linux, the following commands install dependencies that may be needed by GNATS:

sudo apt install default-jdk
sudo apt install libcurl4-gnutls-dev
sudo apt install libxml2-dev

Testing

To test the para-atm installation, run the following command from the base directory:

python -m unittest

The test suite includes testing with GNATS. To test NATS instead, set USE_GNATS = False in test_para_atm.py.

Usage

The para-atm package may be used from within Python via import paraatm, or through the command-line interface provided by the para-atm command. For help with the command-line interface, run:

para-atm -h

If para-atm was installed within a virtual environment, make sure that environment is activated.

Documentation

The latest version of the documentation is available at https://para-atm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html. The documentation is written using Sphinx. Use the following steps to build the documentation locally:

• Install sphinx (pip install sphinx from within virtual environment, or sudo apt install python3-sphinx on Ubuntu Linux if not using virtual environment)
• From the docs directory, run make html
• Open _build/html/index.html in a web browser

Contributors

The project has been developed under the guidance of ULI PI Dr. Yongming Liu, with student contributors as follows:

Hari Iyer, PARA-ATM Founder & (Former)Lead Software Engineer, hari.iyer@asu.edu.

Yutian Pang, PARA-ATM Research Associate, yutian.pang@asu.edu.