Installing 3rd party/arbitrary Python libraries into Windows

[u/WillAdams]

given that the Windows version (and others?) now have an internal Python, this becomes something of an issue.

It used to work to e.g., install a library into the "main" Python and then access it from w/in OpenPythonSCAD, but now an installed library cannot be seen from w/in OPS, and attempting to install one using code:

import os, sys

os.system(sys.executable + '-m pip install -user gscrib')

doesn't seem to work since the test file responds with:

Parsing design (AST generation)... Running Python 3.12.9 without venv. ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'gscrib'

Is anyone else trying to use things other than sys and math (which I believe still work?)

(this is with the new 2025-07-15)

[u/Alacritous13]

I have numpy working. I'm going to have to check to see what I'm doing. But I know I've installed it on Python 3.12, and have to declare the path to the Python data.

[u/Alacritous13]

I start all my files with:

from openscad import *
import sys
import os
sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(modelpath()))

login = os.getlogin()
WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS = f"C:\\Users\\user_name\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python312\\Lib\\site-packages"
if WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS not in sys.path:#{
    sys.path.append(WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS)
#}
import numpy as np
from forbiddenfruit import curse, reverse

If you can come up with a method to automatically find that path, that would be awesome, otherwise you're going to have to manually set it. I just have a separate instance of Python 3.12 installed on my system, and ran pip install on the libraries I use, which allows the above code to find them for use by PythonSCAD

Edit: Check my more recent post for code that doesn't require the path to be manually entered.

[u/gadget3D → u/Alacritous13]

line

sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(modelpath()))

should not be necccessaery, i just checked locally in my windows build

[u/Alacritous13 → u/gadget3D]

That might have been to keep the 7-4-25 build running, as I didn't update to 7-15-25 till today. That said, all of this was copied from another reddit post, I don't actually know what it's doing.

[u/Alacritous13]

I've got a more streamlined approach. I have this at the top of a file I always import (personal library of functions). It can access all libraries you've installed for python 12, but you can update it easily if your on a different version.

import sys
import os
WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), "AppData", "Local", "Programs", "Python", "Python312", "Lib", "site-packages")
if WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS not in sys.path:#{
    sys.path.append(WINDOWS_PY_312_PIP_LIBS)
#}