Installation¶

In this tutorial you make a project folder and install redsun in it. You'll do all the tutorials that follow in that folder.

Before you start¶

1. Make the project¶

Open a terminal in the place where you keep your work, and make a project called my-microscope:

uv init --bare --pin-python --python 3.11 my-microscope

Initialized project `my-microscope` at `/home/you/my-microscope`

The new folder holds two files: pyproject.toml lists what the project needs, and .python-version says which Python runs it.

Go into the folder, since you run every command of the tutorials from there:

cd my-microscope

2. Install redsun¶

Add redsun to the project, with PyQt6 to draw its windows:

uv add "redsun[pyqt]"

uv makes a virtual environment in the folder, called .venv, and installs redsun in it. You never need to activate that environment, because uv run uses it for you.

3. Check that it works¶

uv run python -c "import redsun; print(redsun.__version__)"

The command prints the version you installed:

0.14.0

What you built¶

You made a project folder, my-microscope, with redsun and pyqt6 installed in an environment of its own.

Next steps¶

• Writing your first session is the next tutorial, where you build a window with a button that moves a stage.
• How to install redsun covers other tools, the other Qt binding, and the extras for storing data.