Even though the technique for using Chimera as Python module was mentioned on the mailing list many years ago, it does not work in general because some of Chimera's functionality only works if Chimera has a graphics window (or is the experimental headless version), and other Chimera code inopportunely depends on the GUI. So instead: The best method is to use Chimera as the Python interpreter. If you have the other Python packages already installed on your system, then set the CHIMERA_PATH environment variable to the directory with the packages in it (Chimera uses CHIMERA_PATH instead of PYTHON_PATH) and open the Python script in Chimera or run the Python script with Chimera's --script option, see http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ProgrammersGuide/faq.html#q3. If you need to install a Python package into Chimera's Python interpreter, see http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ProgrammersGuide/faq.html#q3b for how to use setup.py, easy_install, or pip. Note that binary packages should be compiled with the same version of Python that Chimera uses and the same compiler that Chimera used. For the Chimera 1.9 release, that is Python 2.7.6 and compilers are: Microsoft Windows: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 on Windows 7 Mac OS X: Xcode 3.2.6 with the 10.6 SDK on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Linux: GCC 4.6.2 on Debian 4.0 HTH, Greg On 07/03/2014 04:03 PM, Ivan Castro wrote:

Hi everyone,

Looks like Chimera can be installed as a python module, but I can't find the first steps to do that. Anyone can suggest me a tutorial or webpage for this purpose.

Thanks.

-- Iván Castro, B. Sc (Hons). M. Sc Student - Biology at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. Member of Grupo de Estudios en Genética, Ecología Molecular y Fisiología Animal. Member of Fundación Colombiana para la Investigación y Conservación de Tiburones y Rayas.