Documentation

The Gitlab repository of the CIGALE manual contains some examples how to use CIGALE. Other than that, after installing CIGALE, run the pcigale init command and follow the instructions given on screen and in the pcigale.ini file.

Easy step by step installation

If you are new to Python and don’t really know how to install CIGALE, you can follow these simple steps in a terminal shell:

  1. If Anaconda, a software distribution system for data science, is not installed on you system, install it using the installer proposed on Anaconda web page.
  2. Optionally, you should update the conda software with the command conda update conda.
  3. Download the last CIGALE sources from the download page. Extract the downloaded archive. We will make an editable installation so you’ll need to keep the extracted directory but you may delete the archive file.
  4. Create a conda environment in which you will install CIGALE (for instance with Python 3.12):
    conda create -n cigale python=3.12
  5. Activate this environment, you will need to do this every time you want to use CIGALE (just once, at the beginning of the shell session):
    conda activate cigale
  6. Install some of CIGALE dependencies using conda:
    conda install astropy numpy scipy matplotlib configobj setuptools rich
    Note that for new versions of Anaconda, configobj may not be available. In that case install pip from conda and do pip install configobj.
  7. In your terminal shell go inside your CIGALE source folder (cd /path/to/cigale) and build the CIGALE database with:
    python setup.py build
  8. Finally, install CIGALE in the environment:
    python -m pip install -e .. If you are using the Python system packages, you may need to add the --break-system-packages option. Do not worry, despite its dramatic name, it should be harmless.

Voilà! CIGALE is installed on your computer. Whenever you need to use it, launch a terminal shell, activate the conda environment with conda activate cigale and you will have access to CIGALE commands (pcigale, pcigale-filters, and pcigale-plots) anywhere on your computer. If it does not work, make sure that the executables are in your $PATH. The exact location depends on the platform and how CIGALE is installed (e.g., using Python system package on Arch linux, it is located in ~/.local/bin/).

Last Update: January 17th, 2025