Runtime Environment

Loading

When a capsule is loaded, the capsule.py file is imported as a module and an instance of the Capsule class defined in that module is instantiated. Then, for each compatible device, an instance of the capsule’s Backend class is created using the provided backend_loader function.

Importing

Capsules have access to a number of helpful libraries, including:

• The entirety of the Python standard library

• Numpy (import numpy)

• OpenCV (import cv2)

• Tensorflow (import tensorflow)

• Scikit Learn (import sklearn)

• OpenVino (import openvino)

Applications may provide more libraries in addition to these. Please see that application’s documentation for more information.

Importing From Other Files in the Capsule

In order to allow for more complex capsules that have code reuse within them, capsules may consist of multiple Python files. These files are made available through relative imports.

For example, with the following directory structure:

capsule_dir/
├── capsule.py
├── backend.py
└── utils/
    ├── img_utils.py
    └── ml_utils.py

The capsule.py file may import the other Python files like so:

from . import backend
from .utils import img_utils, ml_utils

Note that non-relative imports to these files will not work:

import backend
from utils import img_utils, ml_utils