Getting SAGA-GIS Python Bindings without compiling from source

Question

I am very new to SAGA-GIS, but I recently developed a workflow using SAGA for processing LiDAR data. Now I need to batch the process using Python. I installed SAGA from the Windows installer and I already have GDAL and other open source packages installed as well.

When I create a python script for a module using the SAGA GUI (right-click on module), my Python installation (Python 2.6 installed with ArcGIS 10.0) does not recognize the module called saga_api. I found saga_api.dll in my SAGA install directory, but not saga_api.py.

All the instructions I have found for installing the SAGA Python Bindings require compiling SAGA from source, but I would rather not mess with that since I already have it installed an working. Not to mention, I worry that compiling all the dependencies, like gdal, will break the installations of those packages I already have installed.

Can anyone offer any insight?

Answer 1

I am aware that the question is one year old and talks about Windows. I ended up on this page when trying to install the SAGA GIS bindings on Linux and thought other people might as well, so I document what you have to do.

On Ubuntu you simply go

sudo apt-get install saga (if saga is not yet installed)
sudo apt-get install python-saga

The SAGA bindings depend on python2 (in my case they work with python2.7)

$ python2.7
Python 2.7.4 (default, Apr 19 2013, 18:28:01) 
[GCC 4.7.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import saga_api

• Curlew: no offence, but i think the OP wanted to achieve this on Windows and not linux based systems. I think furthermore every user of a debian-based distribution knows how to use a package manager :)
• Markus M.: No offence taken. I acknowledged the fact that the original questions is about windows in my post in the first line. A post like this would have helped me this morning (because I had a hard time finding helpful information on the SAGA documentation page) so I thought others might have the same need.