Installation

Installation#

The tecio package was written and tested for Linux and maxOS operating systems. In principle, any system that is capable of running Tecplot with a modern Python install should be able to run tecio.

The recommended installation method is via PyPI:

pip install tecio-python

This will also install or upgrade the required Python dependency, NumPy.

Note

On systems where you do not have elevated privileges add the --user flag so the package is installed into your home directory instead of the system-wide site-packages:

pip install --user tecio-python

The installed scripts (tecdump, tecstats, etc.) will be placed in ~/.local/bin on Linux and macOS. Make sure that directory is on your PATH.

Alternatively, install a specific version directly from the wheel distributed with each GitHub release:

pip install tecio-<version>-py3-none-any.whl

If you have cloned the repository and prefer to install from source:

# From the repository root
pip install .

For development (editable install with all optional tooling):

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Software Dependencies#

Required#

  • Python 3.10 or later

  • NumPy — installed automatically by pip

  • Tecplot 360 EX (2024 R1 or newer) — provides the TecIO shared library (libtecio.so on Linux, libtecio.dylib on macOS, tecio.dll on Windows). An active Tecplot license is not required at runtime; only the installed software distribution is needed.

Note

The FEMIXED zone type was added to TecIO released with Tecplot 360 EX 2024 R1. tecio is compatible with older versions of TecIO, but FEMIXED zones cannot be created.

Optional#

The demos under demos/ use additional packages that are not installed automatically:

  • SciPy — spectral solver and interpolation demos

  • tqdm — progress bars during long time loops

Install them together with:

pip install scipy tqdm

The IPython interactive shell is recommended for users who want to use the API to read or write Tecplot data interactively.

Locating the TecIO Shared Library#

On import, tecio searches for the TecIO shared library by locating the Tecplot 360 executable on PATH and resolving the library path relative to it. This works automatically for standard Tecplot installations.

If the automatic search fails — for example, because Tecplot is not on PATH, multiple versions are installed, or you are working on an HPC system where Tecplot is loaded as a module — set the TECIO_LIB environment variable to the full path of the library:

# Linux
export TECIO_LIB=/opt/tecplot/360ex_2025r1/bin/libtecio.so

# macOS
export TECIO_LIB="/Applications/Tecplot 360 EX 2025 R1.app/Contents/Frameworks/libtecio.dylib"

# Windows (PowerShell)
$env:TECIO_LIB = "C:\Program Files\Tecplot\Tec360EX 2025 R1\bin\tecio.dll"

Add the export to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.) or to your project’s .env file to make the setting permanent.

To verify which library tecio has resolved at runtime:

from tecio import utils
print(utils.get_tecio_lib())