[visionegg] VisionEgg and Python 2.4 - quick and dirty?

Hello yet again,

This is long-winded but detailed, apologies:

Unfortunately, it looks like I need to move up to Python 2.4. It introduces the new 'key' option in sort() (and in the new function sorted()). This allows you to use the following bit of code to give you the indices you need to retrieve the elements in a list in sorted order:

######################################################################## # Given a list, find the indices used to get the elements from the list # in sorted order. Based on a post by Peter Otten on comp.lang.python
# 2004/09/04. This uses the 'key' option to sort and the 'sorted'
# function, both new in Python 2.4. Copied from ASPN.activestate.com,
# this is a recipe submitted by Andrew Dalke on 2004/10/06, Version
# no: 1.1
def sortreport(data):
return sorted(range(len(data)), key = data.__getitem__)

This is exactly what I need to do quick shuffling of lists, while maintaining knowledge of how to retrieve items in that list in sorted order. It works well, and it's very fast. The only other obvious way that I know of is to search through lists using .index(), and on lists of 10s of thousands, that's proved to be far too slow. The whole point of all of this is to be able to independently shuffle stimulus 'dimensions' over presentations, so say, if your dimensions were orientation, temporal, and spatial frequency of a grating, you could have your orientations and spatial frequencies shuffled independently, while keeping your spatial frequency dimension in sorted order.

Anyways, I found all the required install packages for Python 2.4: Numeric, numarray, PIL, PyOpenGL, Pygame. The only thing left is VisionEgg. Installing from the VisionEgg windows binary for Python 2.3 doesn't work of course. Just copying over the two VisionEgg folders into the new Python24 directory works, VE runs just fine, except when I want to run in max priority mode (I'm running Win2K), which depends on _win32_maxpriority.pyd, a compiled C file. I get a dialog saying that python23.dll can't be found, and I get the following traceback:

-- snip ---
File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\VisionEgg\Core.py", line 352, in __init__
VisionEgg.PlatformDependent.set_priority() # defaults to max priority
File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\VisionEgg\PlatformDependent.py", line 124, in set_priority
import win32_maxpriority
File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\VisionEgg\win32_maxpriority.py", line 4, in ?
import _win32_maxpriority
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.
---------

So, I tried checking out VisionEgg with CVS, and then running 'python setup.py install'. That got as far as:

---------
running build_ext
error: Python was built with version 7.1 of Visual Studio, and extensions need to be built with the same version of the
compiler, but it isn't installed.
---------

So I set skip_c_compilation = 1 in setup.py. 'python setup.py install' completed successfully. This time, running VE with max priority = 1 gave a slightly different traceback:

-- snip --
File "C:\Python24\Lib\site-packages\VisionEgg\PlatformDependent.py", line 124, in set_priority
import win32_maxpriority
File "C:\Python24\Lib\site-packages\VisionEgg\win32_maxpriority.py", line 4, in ?
import _win32_maxpriority
ImportError: No module named _win32_maxpriority
---------

because of course that file (_win32_maxpriority.pyd) doesn't exist. Even when I try copying the old _win32_maxpriority.pyd file in there, I get the same error.

So now I'm trying to find a copy of Visual Studio 7.1 (that's 2003 in MS speak) so I can run setup.py with skip_c_compilation = 0.

Here's my question: Is there a quick and easy way to be able to get max priority for VisionEgg in Python 2.4 in Windows without having to recompile the _win32_maxpriority.pyd file? Or could someone with a copy of Vis Studio 7.1 and Python 2.4 compile this file for me? Or is there a way to do this using MinGW?

P.S. I've noticed that now when I run VE in windowed mode (in Windows 2000, with max priority off of course), the windows pop up at incrementally distant locations from the top-left corner of the screen, as normal apps often do in Windows. This is sort of an annoyance as before they used to stay centered on the screen, which was nice. Note that currently I'm using:

PyOpenGL-2.0.1.09.py2.4-numpy23.exe and
pygame-1.6.win32-py2.4.exe

so this behaviour might have something to do with changes in one of those. Just a heads up...

Cheers,

Martin Spacek
PhD student, Swindale lab
Graduate Program in Neuroscience
Dept. of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
+1-604-875-4555 ext. 66282
mspacek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | http://swindale.ecc.ubc.ca
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