Emulate processing with python?

Question

I'm looking for a basic programmatic animation framework similar to processing except in python. That is, something that allows pixel manipulation, has basic drawing/color primitives, and is geared towards animation. Is pygame pretty much the best bet or are there other options?

Answer 1

You could get pretty close to processing with vpython:

http://vpython.org/

The primitives are very easy to work with, and it is adept at animation.

I am not sure what kind of pixel manipulation you are looking for, but there may be something for that as well.

Answer 2

"Similar to processing except in python" screams "NodeBox" to me. NodeBox is OSX-only, and i don't know if it allows pixel-level manipulation, but much of its command set was derived directly from processing. You can find it at the NodeBox site.

Answer 3

There's quite recent C++ library, SFML, which is a good alternative to SDL. Thus its Python bindings should be a good alternative to Pygame.

Answer 4

I prefer pyglet to pygame (but I'm not sure exactly what your needs will be):

• http://www.pyglet.org/

If you need a 3d engine:

• http://www.panda3d.org/
• http://www.pysoy.org/

Someone's already mentioned Shoebot, which is probably the closest in spirit to Processing:

• http://tinkerhouse.net/shoebot/

Answer 5

This blog entry shows how to do processing implementations using Jython.

Answer 6

Well, this is as close as it gets: http://code.google.com/p/pyprocessing/