pip install pyvisa-py

Pyvisa-py runs on Python 3.6+.

If you do not install any extra library pyvisa-py will only be able to access tcpip resources. The following sections will describe what extra libraries you need to install and how to configure them to use other resources.

Ethernet resources: TCPIP INSTR/SOCKET 

Pyvisa-py relies on socket module in the Python Standard Library to interact with the instrument which you do not need to install any extra library to access those resources.

To discover VXI-11 devices on all network interfaces, please install psutil . Otherwise, discovery will only occur on the default network interface.

Discovery of both HiSLIP and VICP devices relies on mDNS , which is a protocol for service discovery in a local area network. To enable resource discovery for HiSLIP and VICP, you should install zeroconf .

The TCP/IP VICP protocol (proprietary to Teledyne LeCroy) depends on the pyvicp package. You should install this package if you need to use VICP.

Serial resources: ASRL INSTR 

To access serial resources, you should install PySerial . Version 3.0 or newer is required. No special configuration is required.

GPIB resources: GPIB INSTR 

On all platforms, using GPIB resources requires to install a gpib driver. On Windows, it is install as part of NI-VISA or Keysight VISA for example. On MacOSX, you should install the NI-488 library from National instrument. On Linux, you can use a commercial driver (NI) or the linux-gpib project.

On Linux, linux-gpib comes with Python bindings so you do not have to install any extra library. On all systems with GPIB device drivers, GPIB support is available through gpib-ctypes .

You should not have to perform any special configuration after the install.

USB resources: USB INSTR/RAW 

For USB resources, you need to install PyUSB . PyUSB relies on USB driver library such as libusb 0.1, libusb 1.0, libusbx, libusb-win32 and OpenUSB that you should also install. Please refer to PyUSB documentation for more details.

On Unix system, one may have to modify udev rules to allow non-root access to the device you are trying to connect to. The following tutorial describes how to do it http://ask.xmodulo.com/change-usb-device-permission-linux.html .

On Windows, you may have to uninstall the USBTMC-specific driver installed by Windows and re-install a generic driver. Please check libusb’s guide for more details, but installing a WinUSB driver with Zadig should be a good start.

Note that on Windows, devices that are already open cannot be detected and will not be returned by ResourceManager.list_resources .

How do I know if PyVISA-py is properly installed? 

Using the pyvisa information tool. Run in your console:

pyvisa-info
You will get info about PyVISA, the installed backends and their options.
Using the development version
You can install the latest development version (at your own risk) directly
form GitHub:
$ pip install -U git+https://github.com/pyvisa/pyvisa-py.git