On windows none of the required components is installed by default. This file describes the steps taken on a tested install of python-brlcad, you might want to check them if having trouble getting python-brlcad to work.
If don't already have python installed, please get the right version from:
Be sure you take the 2.7.x version and not 3.x.y, and that it is the right 32 or 64 bit version matching your OS.
Once you installed python, you'll also need to install pip - it doesn't come with the default installation.
The following web page has easy instructions but I'm not sure how trustworthy it is, so you might fare better searching the web for "python pip windows".
http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/starting/install/win/
I include the short version here in case of the above link goes broken:
Install setuptools: run the python script available here: https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py
Install pip: run the python script available here: https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
If you can't get pip installed, you can get by with installing setuptools only and go for installing python-brlcad from the source package.
python-brlcad uses ctypesgen under the hood, which in turns needs a C preprocessor to parse the library headers. While any other C preprocessor could work, gcc is the only one extensively tested and known to work well.
To provide gcc on windows during installation you can use either mingw or cygwin. There is a bug in pip that causes a WindowsError to occur when installing this package, see the bug report for more details.
There is a bug in ctypesgen that prevents the mingw gcc method from working on Windows, so start with the cygwin method and then try mingw if that doesn't work.
One option is to install cygwin and use cygwin gcc. However, it is important to clarify that there is no cygwin brlcad build. Using cygwin gcc is just a cheap shortcut for the Windows python installation process of python-brlcad. Mainly this trick is useful for Windows users that already have cygwin gcc.
To use cygwin gcc, start the python-brlcad install process in cygwin bash:
/cygdrive/c/Python27/Scripts/pip.exe install --upgrade brlcad
During the installation, ctypesgen will make use of cygwin gcc because of the cygwin $PATH environment variable.
There is no brlcad build that targets cygwin.
Install a Windows build of gcc (probably by installing mingw and adding
C:\MingW\bin to the PATH environment variable). For a really minimal
install you can follow the steps below; if you know how to do that or already
have MinGW installed skip to the next section.
Install mingw-get-setup.exe from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/
The MinGW Installation Manager should run automatically now, if not start
it manually from the Windows Start Menu/All programs. Select Basic Setup
and choose the mingw*-base package, then Click Installation/Apply Changes.
If you installed MinGW in the default %SystemRoot%:\MinGW directory, skip to
the next section, the python-brlcad install script will find it there.
Otherwise you'll need to add the MinGW bin directory (defaults to
C:\MinGW\bin) to the PATH environment variable: on my Windows that
was accessible by right clicking on Computer in the Explorer, select
Properties, then Advanced system settings, then Environment Variables.
You need then to find the PATH variable (or add it if it doesn't exist), and
add C:\MinGW\bin at the end of it (separate it with a ; if PATH already
has some other entries).
Run in a command window:
C:\Python27\Scripts\pip.exe install --upgrade brlcad