flipper 0.9.8

For manipulating curves and measured laminations on surfaces and producing mapping tori.

Flipper is a program for computing the action of mapping classes on laminations on punctured surfaces using ideal triangulation coordinates. It can decide the Nielsen-Thurston type of a given mapping class and, for pseudo-Anosov mapping classes, construct a layered, veering triangulation of their mapping torus, as described by Agol.

Flipper can be run as a Python 2, Python 3 or Sage Python module. Currently, it is fastest when run through Sage. For even more speed (~25% more) consider running flipper with the -O optimise bytecode option.

Installation

Flipper is available on the Python Package Index. The preferred method for installing the latest stable release is to use pip (included in Python 2.7.9 and Python 3.4 by default):

> python -m pip install flipper --user --upgrade

Warning

In order to use the flipper GUI on OS X, users must first update their copy of Tk/Tcl as described here. Flipper has been tested with ActiveTcl 8.5.18. Additionally, if running under flipper Sage, users must then reinstall sage python by using the command:

> sage -f python

Warning

As of Sage 6.9, Sage no longer appears to load packages from the user directory. Therefore users may need to either install flipper directly into Sage (which may require superuser privileges) or add the path to flipper to their PYTHONPATH environment variable.

Usage

Once installed, start the flipper GUI by using:

> python -m flipper.app

Run the flipper test suite by using:

> python -m flipper.test

Open the flipper documentation by using:

> python -m flipper.doc

Citing

If you find flipper useful in your research, please consider citing it. A suggested reference is:

Mark Bell. flipper (Computer Software).
https://bitbucket.org/Mark_Bell/flipper/, 2013--2015. Version <<version number>>

the BibTeX entry:

@Misc{flipper,
        author = {Bell, Mark},
        title = {flipper (Computer Software)},
        howpublished = {\url{https://bitbucket.org/Mark_Bell/flipper/}},
        year = {2013--2015},
        note = {Version <<version number>>}
}

or the BibItem:

\bibitem{flipper} Mark Bell: \emph{flipper (Computer Software)},
        \url{https://bitbucket.org/Mark_Bell/flipper/}, (2013--2015),
        Version <<version number>>.

Development

The latest development version of flipper is available from https://bitbucket.org/Mark_Bell/flipper Alternatively, you can clone the mercurial repository directly using the command:

> hg clone https://bitbucket.org/mark_bell/flipper

And then install using the command:

> python setup.py install --user