Crazyflie PC client

The Crazyflie PC client enables flashing and controlling the Crazyflie. It implement the user interface and high-level control (for example gamepad handling). The communication with Crazyflie and the implementation of the CRTP protocol to control the Crazflie is handled by the cflib project.

For more info see our wiki.

Running from source

The Crazyflie client requires cflib. If you want to develop with the lib too, follow the cflib readme to install it.

Windows (7/8/10)

Running from source on Windows is tested using the miniconda python distribution. It is possible to run from any distribution as long as the required packages are installed. Building the windows installer requires Python 3.4 (because py2exe is not distributed for Python 3.5+ yet). The following instructions assumes Miniconda 32-bit is installed.

Note on python version: Building the windows executable and installer requires Python 3.4. The client has mostly been tested using Python 32Bit but should work on python 64Bits as well. If you are not interested about building the windows installer, just by running the client, you can run on more recent version of python.

Open a command line windows and move to the crazyflie clients folder (the exact command depends of where the project is cloned):

cd crazyflie-clients-python

Create and activate a Python 3.4 environment with pyqt5:

conda create -y -n cfclient python=3.4 pyqt=5
activate cfclient

Download the 32bits SDL2.dll windows library:

python tools\build\prep_windows

Install the client in development mode:

pip install -e .[dev]

You can now run the clients with the following commands:

cfclient
cfheadless
cfloader
cfzmq

NOTE: To use Crazyradio you will have to install the drivers

Working on the client with PyCharm

Pycharm is an IDE for python. Any IDE or development environment will work for the Crazyflie client. The key here is to use the miniconda python interpreter from the environment created earlier, this can be applied to other development environment.

To work on the Crazyflie firmware with Pycharm, install pycharm comunity edition and open the Crazyflie client folder in it. Then:

• Go to file>settings
• Go to "Project: crazyflie-clients-python" > Project interpreter
• Press the cog on the top right, beside "Project interpreter" and click "add local"
• Locate the interpreter under <miniconda_root>\env\cfclient\python.exe (for example C:\Miniconda3\envs\cfclient\python.exe, see screenshoot)
• Validate with OK two times
• Open the bin/cfclient file in the pycharm editor and then "Run>Run 'cfclient'" will start the client

You are now able to edit and debug the python code. you can edit the .ui files for the GUI with QtCreator. You can the Qt development kit from the Qt website and open the .ui files in QtCreator.

Creating Windows installer

When you are able to run from source, you can build the windows executable and installer.

First build the executable

python setup.py py2exe

NOTE: The first time the previous command will fail complaining about a PyQt5\uic\port_v2 folder. Remove this folder with rmdir \Q \S path\to\PyQt5\uic\port_v2, you can copy-paste the folder path from the py2exe error message.

Now you can run the client with dist\cfclient.exe.

To generate the installer you need nsis installed and in the path. If you are a user of chocolatey you can install it with choco install nsis.portable -version 2.50, otherwise you can just download it and install it manually.

To create the installer:

python win32install\generate_nsis.py
makensis win32install\cfclient.nsi

Mac OSX

Using homebrew

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following will use Homebrew and its own Python distribution. If you have a lot of other 3rd party python stuff already running on your system they might or might not be affected by this.

1. Install homebrew

   See the Homebrew site

2. Install the brew bottles needed

   brew install python3 sdl sdl2 sdl_image sdl_mixer sdl_ttf libusb portmidi pyqt5
   

3. Install the client

   • If you only want to use the client to fly the Crazyflie and don't care about coding

   pip3 install cfclient
   

   • If you want to develop the client and play with the source code. From the source folder run

   pip3 install -e .
   

   If you want to develop on cflib as well, install cflib from https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-lib-python

4. You now have all the dependencies needed to run the client. The client can now be started from any location by:

   cfclient
   

Linux

Launching the GUI application

If you want to develop with the lib, install cflib from https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-lib-python

Cfclient requires Python3, pip and pyqt5 to be installed using the system package manager. For example on Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-pyqt5

Install cfclient to run it from source. From the source folder run (to install for your user only you can add --user to the command):

pip3 install -e .

To launch the GUI application in the source folder type: python3 bin/cfclient

To launch the GUI after a systemwide installation, execute cfclient.

Dependencies

The Crazyflie PC client has the following dependencies:

• Installed from system packages
  • Python 3.4+
  • PyQt5
  • A pyusb backend: libusb 0.X/1.X
• Installed from PyPI using PIP:
  • cflib
  • PyUSB
  • PyQtGraph
  • ZMQ
  • appdirs

Setting udev permissions

Using Crazyradio on Linux requires that you set udev permissions. See the cflib readme for more information.