In this post, I will show you how to set up Anaconda. Anaconda is a free, open-source distribution of Python (and R). The goal of Anaconda is to be a free “one-stop-shop” for all your Python data science and machine learning needs. It contains the key packages you need to build cool machine learning projects.

Table of Contents

Requirements

Here are the requirements:

Set up Anaconda.
Set up Jupyter Notebook.
Install important libraries.
Learn basic Anaconda commands.

Directions

Install Anaconda

Go to the Anaconda website and click “Download.”

Choose the latest version of Python. In my case, that is Python 3.7. Click “Download” to download the Anaconda installer for your operating system type (i.e. Windows, macOS, or Linux).

Follow the instructions to install the program:

Installing on Windows (this is what I’m using)
Installing on macOS
Installing on Linux

Verify Anaconda is installed by searching for “Anaconda Navigator” on your computer.

Open Anaconda Navigator.

Follow the instructions here for creating a “Hello World” program. You can use Spyder, Jupyter Notebooks, or the Anaconda Prompt (terminal). If you use Jupyter Notebooks, you will need to open the notebooks in Firefox, Google Chrome or another web browser.

Check to make sure that you have IPython installed. Use the following command (in an Anaconda Prompt window) to check:

where ipython

Make sure that you have pip installed. Pip is the package management system for Python.

where pip

Make sure that you have conda installed. Conda is Anaconda’s package management system.

where conda

Install Some Libraries

Install OpenCV

To install OpenCV, use the following command in the Anaconda Prompt:

pip install opencv-contrib-python

Type the following command to get a list of packages and make sure opencv-contrib-python is installed.

conda list

Install dlib

Install cmake.

pip install cmake

Install the C++ library called dlib.

pip install dlib

Type the following command and take a look at the list to see if dlib is successfully installed:

conda list

Install Tesseract

Go to Tesseract at UB Mannheim.

Download the Tesseract for your system.

Set it up by following the prompts.

Once Tesseract OCR is downloaded, find it on your system.

Copy the name of the file it is located in. In my case, that is:

C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR

Search for “Environment Variables” on your computer.

Under “System Variables,” click “Path,” and then click Edit.

Add the path: C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR

Click OK a few times to close all windows.

Open up the Anaconda Prompt.

Type this command to see if tesseract is installed on your system.

where tesseract

Now, apply the Python binding to the packages using the following commands:

pip install tesseract

pip install pytesseract

Install TensorFlow

Type the following command in the Anaconda Prompt:

pip install tensorflow

Install TensorFlow hub using this command:

pip install tensorflow-hub

Now install tflearn.

pip install tflearn

Now, install the Keras neural network library.

pip install keras

Install the Rest of the Libraries

Type the following commands to install the rest of the libraries:

pip install pillow

pip install SimpleITK

Learn Basic Anaconda Commands

Changing Directories

If you ever want to change directories to the D drive instead of the C drive, open Anaconda Prompt on your computer and type the following commands, in order

D:

cd D:\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX

where D:\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX is the file path.

Listing Directory Contents

Type the dir command to list the contents of a directory.

dir

Creating a Jupyter Notebook

Open Anaconda Prompt on your computer and type the following command:

jupyter notebook

Converting a Jupyter Notebook into Python Files

If you want to convert a Jupyter Notebook into Python files, change to that directory and type the following command:

jupyter nbconvert --to script *.ipynb

Congratulations if you made it this far! You have all the libraries installed that you need to do fundamental image processing and computer vision work in Python.