Installation

Installation#

Requirements#

Before installing pyRadtran, make sure you have:

  • Python 3.9 or higher

  • libRadtran installed on your system

  • Common scientific Python packages (numpy, pandas, xarray) — installed automatically with pyRadtran

Install from Source#

# Using SSH (if you have SSH keys set up)
git clone git@github.com:FranzFlink/pyRadtran.git
# or standard HTTPS
# git clone https://github.com/FranzFlink/pyRadtran.git

cd pyRadtran
pip install -e .

Installing libRadtran#

pyRadtran requires a working libRadtran installation. Follow these steps:

  1. Download libRadtran from http://www.libradtran.org

  2. Extract the archive and build:

tar -xzvf libradtran-x.yy.tar.gz
cd libradtran-x.yy
./configure
make
make check

  1. Note the installation path — you’ll need it to configure pyRadtran.

Setting Up Your Master Configuration#

pyRadtran uses a layered configuration system. The most important first step after installation is creating your personal master configuration file. This tells pyRadtran where to find libRadtran on your machine:

mkdir -p ~/.pyradtran

Create ~/.pyradtran/config.yaml with the following content, adjusting paths to match your libRadtran installation:

# ~/.pyradtran/config.yaml — User-specific configuration
# This file is loaded automatically and overrides built-in defaults.
# Adjust the paths below to match your local libRadtran installation.

paths:
  libradtran_bin: /opt/libradtran/bin/uvspec
  libradtran_data: /opt/libradtran/share/libRadtran/data
  atmosphere_profile: /opt/libradtran/share/libRadtran/data/atmmod/afglms.dat
  solar_spectrum: /opt/libradtran/share/libRadtran/data/solar_flux/NewGuey2003.dat

Tip

Once your master config is set, you typically don’t need to specify libRadtran paths in individual simulation configs — they inherit from your master config automatically.

Optional Dependencies#

Some pyRadtran features require additional packages:

Package

Purpose

Install

siphon

Radiosonde data retrieval from IGRA

pip install siphon

gcsfs

ERA5 data access from Google Cloud

pip install gcsfs

scikit-learn

Statistical metrics for validation notebooks

pip install scikit-learn

seaborn

Enhanced plotting in some notebooks

pip install seaborn

 
# Install all optional dependencies at once
pip install siphon gcsfs scikit-learn seaborn

Verifying Your Installation#

After installation, verify everything works:

import pyradtran
print(pyradtran.__version__)

Then try running the albedo quickstart notebook to confirm that pyRadtran can communicate with libRadtran.