Getting UrbanSim up and Running

Dear Members,

I am in the midst of trying to install and find my way around UrbanSim
with the short term goal of getting it to perform the simulation as
described in Chapter 5 of the Reference Manual and User Guide (online
version). Unfortunately, and despite a fair bit of effort, I have been
unsuccessful. As a result, I am turning to the listserve for advice. My
  apologies in advance for questions for which there are obvious answers.

I have tried to install UrbanSim two ways, thinking that perhaps the
problems I have been having had their root in different software
configurations.

The first package configuraton I used was as described in the online
manual
(http://www.urbansim.org/opus/opus_manual/docs/windows_install.html)
(Python Enthought Edition, MySQL 5.0).

The second package configuration used the 'external software' that had
been zipped into one file on 29 February 2006 and available on the same
page as the urbansim Opus stable build found at
http://www.urbansim.org/download/index.shtml (Python 2.3, MySQL 4.1).

The urbansim Opus package has all the functionality required for the
examples in the Tutorial of Chapter 4.

There are several problems, however, that persist under both
installations. I will not go into detail about error messages here, in
case they are not necessary to see the problem. If they are, I will
gladly provide more detailed error messages to anyone interested.

These problems are:
1 - incapable of creating my own opus package.
The file c:\Python23\lib\shutil.py, referred to in line 102 of copytree
os.mkdir(dst) cannot be found, although it is there.

2 - although test_opusnumarray works, running alltests.py does not:
Error 1045, "Access denied for for user
'urbansim'@'vpn-epfl-a035.epfl.ch' (using password: YES)"

3 - Incapable of running a simulation. If a services database is created
beforehand, start_run.py doesn't work because of an error saying that
the services database already exists. If it is not created beforehand,
it ends in: _mysql_exception.OperationalError:(1049, "Unknown database
'psrc_2000_baseyear_fircrest'").

Any suggestions that anyone might have would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Zak

-
Zachary Patterson
Transport and Mobility Laboratory
School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering
EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
http://transp-or.epfl.ch
Phone: +41-21-693.05.29
Fax: +41-21-693.55.70

Official mailing address:
EPFL ENAC INTER TRANSP-OR
MA C1 547 (Bâtiment MA)
Station 8
CH-1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
Received on Tue Oct 24 2006 - 08:52:04 PDT