I am new to Python and I want to install VLFeat on Ubuntu (13.04).
I am using Eclipse 3.8. For Python, I have installed the PyDev extension on Eclipse.
I have installed Numpy, but I don't know how to install VLFeat. I tried to use their website, but I can't get anything for Python. I have downloaded packages, but I don't know how to install them.
Answer
The Menpo Project provides a wrapper around VLFeat: it's called cyvlfeat.
To install cyvlfeat, we strongly suggest you use conda:
conda install -c menlo cyvlfeatIf you don't want to use conda, your mileage will vary. In particular, you must satisfy the linking/compilation requirements for the package, which include the vlfeat dynamic library.
In other words, the nice thing about installing with conda is that it will install (and link) VLFeat dependencies as well.
It may not include all functionalities of VLFeat. Current State as of March 2017:
- fisher
- fisher
- generic
- set_simd_enabled, get_simd_enabled, cpu_has_avx, cpu_has_sse3, cpu_has_sse2
- get_num_cpus,
- get_max_threads, set_num_threads, get_thread_limit
- hog
- hog
- kmeans
- kmeans
- kmeans_quantize
- ikmeans, ikmeans_push
- hikmeans, hikmeans_push
- sift
- dsift
- sift
Relevant reading
Dev blog by Simmi Mourya. This includes descriptions and usage examples.
More alternatives:
- vlfeat-ctypes: minimal VLFeat interface for python
- pyvlfeat fork by jchazalon: A high-level Python wrapper around a subset of the VLFeat library [more recently updated than the original]
Note about the IDE
Installing python packages should be independent of the IDE (Eclipse + PyDev, in the OP case), as long as the interpreter and libraries paths are correctly set up.
Note about conda
It is not required to install the Anaconda distribution in order to use conda. The much lighter Miniconda is enough.