invest/README_PYTHON.rst

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InVEST: Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs
================================================================
About InVEST
=============
InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) is a family
of tools for quantifying the values of natural capital in clear, credible, and
practical ways. In promising a return (of societal benefits) on investments in
nature, the scientific community needs to deliver knowledge and tools to
quantify and forecast this return. InVEST enables decision-makers to quantify
the importance of natural capital, to assess the tradeoffs associated with
alternative choices, and to integrate conservation and human development.
Older versions of InVEST ran as script tools in the ArcGIS ArcToolBox environment,
but have almost all been ported over to a purely open-source python environment.
InVEST is licensed under a permissive, modified BSD license.
For more information, see:
* `InVEST API documentation <http://invest.readthedocs.io/>`_
* InVEST on `GitHub <https://github.com/natcap/invest>`__
* The `Natural Capital Project website <http://naturalcapitalproject.stanford.edu>`__.
.. Everything after this comment will be included in the API docs.
.. START API
Installing InVEST
=================
Python Dependencies
-------------------
Dependencies for ``natcap.invest`` are listed in ``requirements.txt``:
.. code-block::
{requirements}
Additionally, a python binding for Qt is needed to use the InVEST GUI, but is
not required for development against ``natcap.invest``. InVEST uses the
interface library ``qtpy`` to support ``PyQt5`` and ``PySide2``. In our
experience, ``PyQt5`` and ``PySide2`` have been easiest
to work with. One of these bindings for Qt must be installed in order to use
the GUI.
Installing from Source
----------------------
If you have a compiler installed and configured for your system, and
dependencies installed, the easiest way to install InVEST as a python package
is:
.. code-block:: console
$ pip install natcap.invest
Installing the latest development version
-----------------------------------------
The latest development version of InVEST can be installed from our git
source tree:
.. code-block:: console
$ pip install git+https://github.com/natcap/invest@master#egg=natcap.invest
Development
===========
Dependencies for developing InVEST are listed in ``requirements.txt`` and in
``requirements-dev.txt``. If you're running a GUI, you'll need a Qt binding
(see above) and the packages installed in ``requirements-gui.txt``.
Support
=======
Participate in the NatCap forums here:
http://community.naturalcapitalproject.org
Bugs may be reported at http://github.com/natcap/invest