README

PISCES is software and data describing the best-known ranges for California's 133 native fish and numerous non-native fish. The data are compiled from multiple sources and are expert verified. It is accessible directly via the PISCES software, downloadable as geographic data layers or images , or queryable from the PISCES database.

PISCES was developed with initial funding from the USDA Forest Service Region 5 and additional funding from California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Biogeographic Data Branch, in collaboration with numerous experts in fish biology and distribution in California.

How do I get set up?

See full documentation

Manual setup

If you need to perform a manual setup, you'll need the following:

Install dependencies

PISCES runs on Python 2 or Python 3 (though some functionality is currently missing in Python 3. It cannot generate maps or set metadata on exports in Python 3 yet).

It requires:

pyodbc
SQLAlchemy >= 1.10
six
arcpy (for many tools, mapping, and import. It will import fine in other Python installs and allow access to the api portion of the package when you don't have ArcGIS)

The dependencies should be installed for you automatically in the next step, but they are listed here in case you prefer a manual installation.

Set up the package in Python.

PISCES needs to run out of the folder you extract it to, so after cloning the repository, put it in a location where it will live while you use it. If you move it, you will need to repeat setup steps.

Activate whichever Python environment you plan to use for PISCES in a command prompt, then navigate to the folder you stored the PISCES repository in, then to the scripts subfolder and run python setup.py develop in the same command prompt. Activating an appropriate Python environment is a nontrivial operation for new Python users, but is also beyond the scope of this readme right now (sorry!). Reach out to Nick if you need help with that.

Set up registry

If you're on Windows AND using PISCES with ArcGIS, you need to set up the registry as well. The way ArcGIS loads PISCES, it can't find its data files on its own, so we need to tell PISCES where everything is with a registry entry. You need to add a registry key to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CWS\PISCES\location with the value being the full path to the PISCES folder. We'll update the scripts to insert this automatically and include them here soon. Again, if you're not running on Windows, or you aren't using ArcGIS' copy of Python, you don't need to do this step, but you'll be limited to the API functions as opposed to the full functionality of PISCES.

ucd-cws/PISCES