Getting started

Setup a virtual environment and install qnngds

1. Create a new git repository with git init, or follow the instructions at https://github.com/qnngroup/qnn-repo-template to clone a template repository. This is where your new project will go.

  1. In the same directory as the new git repository, create a new virtual environment.

    • Using conda (recommended, miniforge installation instructions):

      • Execute:

        conda create -n my-project-env python=3.12
conda activate my-project-env

      • Install qnngds (see step 3 below)

    • Using uv (recommended, installation instructions):

      • Open a terminal in the directory you want to put your virtual environment.

      • Execute:

        uv venv --python 3.12

      • Follow the instructions from uv to activate the environment, as they will differ depending on the platform.

      • Install qnngds (see step 3 below)

    • Using python virtual environment is dispreffered, since one may need to manually install separate version of python if the system python version does not match the requirements for qnngds.

  2. Install qnngds.

    Note

    If you are on windows, you will need to install gdspy manually before installing qnngds. You will need to download the prebuilt wheel file at [github.com/hetizmann/gdspy/releases](https://github.com/heitzmann/gdspy/releases/tag/v1.6.12). If you’ve followed the instructions this far, you’ve installed python3.12, but the wheel was built with python3.8. To disable the version check, replace cp38 with cp312 (or the appropriate version string based on the installed python version) in the filename for the wheel. Then run the following:

    pip install path/to/gdspy-1.6.12-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl

    Now that you’ve activated your venv, install the package from pypi.

    • Using conda or python venv:

      pip install qnngds

    • Using uv

      uv pip install qnngds

Installing unreleased development versions of qnngds

Note

This process is not tested on Windows. It should work, but it’s possible additional programs need to be installed.

  1. To install a development version of qnngds that hasn’t been released on pypi yet, first clone qnngds from github onto your local machine.

  2. Follow steps 1 and 2 from the above section.

  3. When installing qnngds, replace the command [uv] pip install qnngds with [uv] pip install -e /path/to/cloned/copy/of/qnngds. Note that this will be a different path from the repo you set up earlier.