geant4-pybind 0.1.0b4

Alternative python bindings for Geant4 via pybind11

Python bindings for Geant4

Alternative Python bindings for Geant4 via pybind11. It is loosely based on g4py, but retains an API closer to the standard C++ API and does not require Boost.Python.

It currently includes all g4py bindings plus a large portion of very commonly used classes and functions that aren't currently present in g4py. However, it is still far off from replicating the full Geant4 API and is thus (currently) only applicable for simple simulations.

Installation

It's available on PyPI for all major platforms as a fully self-contained (i.e. statically linked) wheel.

pip install geant4-pybind

Note: Windows users may need to install the visual C++ redistributable package if it's not already installed.

Building

Unix (Linux, OS X) prerequisits

• A Geant4 installation, version 10.7+ (make sure it is also added to the path)
• A C++14 compiler (preferably the one Geant4 was compiled with)
• CMake
• Python3
• pip
• git

Windows prerequisits

• A Geant4 installation, version 10.7+ (make sure it is also added to the PATH)
• Visual Studio 2019 for C++ development, with CMake
• Python3
• pip
• git

Note: If you haven't downloaded the required datasets yet don't worry, you can let geant4_pybind handle them.

Installation

git clone --recursive https://github.com/HaarigerHarald/geant4_pybind
pip install ./geant4_pybind

Windows notes

The above commands have to be executed in a "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2019" and require that Python3, pip and git are added to the PATH environment variable.

General notes

If the repository was cloned non-recursively you can check out the submodule with:

git -C ./geant4_pybind submodule update --init

Usage

Minimal

A minimal example that just starts a Geant4 shell:

from geant4_pybind import *
import sys

ui = G4UIExecutive(len(sys.argv), sys.argv)
ui.SessionStart()

Full examples

Check out the examples directory, which contains the Geant4 basic examples ported to Python. However, writing simulations in Python should be pretty straight forward as the API is almost identical to the C++ one. One notable exception are template classes, which have been renamed such that their type replaces the T (i.e. G4TScoreNtupleWriter<G4RootAnalysisManager> becomes G4RootScoreNtupleWriter).

Bugs?

Yes!

Though the bigger problem is probably that there is still quite a bit missing.

License

This builds upon Geant4 and g4py and thus the Geant4 license applies. The binding code uses pybind11. All my contributions are public domain.