2021-02-15 Blender
Blender (https://www.blender.org/) is an amazing piece of Free Software that covers all the major aspects of the production of computer graphics in a single compact package. It also integrates an extensive Python scripting API. Lawrence D'Oliveiro will demonstrate the Python API, along with an overview of the many ways it can be used to extend the power of Blender. Bring your laptop along to get some hands-on experience with Blender.
2021-03-08 Introduction to Python and Introduction to Virtual Environments
Ever been curious about Python, but never had the time to take a look? Then come along to this meeting, where Lawrence D'Oliveiro will give an introduction into Python, suited for beginners and very good refresher for intermediate users.
Time permitting, Peter Reutemann will give a short introduction into virtual environments and how they will make your life easier when managing multiple Python projects.
2021-04-12 DEC Alpha Computer Instruction Builder and Deep Learning on Edge devices.
Ian Stewart will be demoing his early prototype of a DEC Alpha 64-bit Computer Instruction builder, a GTK GUI that he is currently working on.
Peter Reutemann will talk about his experiences with Deep Learning on edge devices.
2021-05-10 REST API for a machine learning model
Peter Reutemann will demonstrate how to create a simple REST API for a machine learning model. In order to secure the service, JSON Web Tokens (JWT) are employed.
2021-06-14 Solving Mathematical Problems
David Hamilton has embarked on a journey to solve mathematical problems that Project Euler proposes (https://projecteuler.net/), requiring mathematical and programming skills. David will demo how he is using Python to help him solve these tasks.
2021-07-12 Cloud infrastructure in Amazon Web Services and Deep Learning Techniques
Dean Stringer will demonstrate how you can utilize Python to setup cloud infrastructure in Amazon Web Services (AWS), an important building block for anyone's cloud-based venture.
Whether you laugh or cry, David Hamilton will be able to tell you by applying deep learning techniques for detection of facial expressions.
2021-08-09 Ctypes and Cython
Do you have a C library that you would like to use but it has no Python bindings? Let Lawrence D'Oliveiro show you how to create these bindings yourself using ctypes, from toy examples to large, real-world libraries. Does your code need to be more efficient? Then maybe you should write Cython extensions. Peter Reutemann will walk you through the basics of how to achieve this.
2021-09-13 ImageAI
Glenn will demonstrate the use of ImageAI, a high-level python library for object detection and classification (http://www.imageai.org/) that makes it extremely easy to apply deep learning models to real-world problems. He utilizes this library to identify objects that his DJI drone encounters during its flight.
2021-10-11 Embedding Python in LibreOffice documents and Redis
Ian Stewart will demo how to use embedded Python scripts in LibreOffice/OpenOffice for manipulating the Writer, Draw and Calc applications, like the amortization of a loan. The Alternative Python Script Organizer (APSO), an addon extension to LibreOffice, will be featured. See link for more info: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/apso-alternative-script-organizer-for-python
Peter Reutemann will talk about Redis (https://redis.io/), an in-memory data structure store, which can be used as database, cache and message broker.
2021-11-08 Kivy and Buildozer
Unfortunately, Ian Stewart will not be able to revisit kivy (https://kivy.org/), a Python framework for writing cross-platform applications. Instead we will have a hands-on session (with Peter Reutemann's laptop/phone as the guinea pigs) on deploying applications on Android and how the kivy-launcher project (https://github.com/kivy/kivy-launcher) can cut down on development time. kivy-launcher avoids having to compile your kivy projects to an APK beforehand using buildozer by launching them straight from source instead.
2021-12-13 PyInstaller library
During last month's meeting, we came across the PyInstaller library (https://www.pyinstaller.org/). Let's take a look at it, to see whether we can easily create installers for various operating systems and what the library's limitations are.