wxPython

wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API wxWidgets, which have a native look and file. Here are few resources for working with it.

Installation

Ubuntu:sudo apt-get install python-wxtools
OSX: download the binary from here or with brew install wxwidgets wxpython
Windows: download the binary from here

A very nice guide to wxPython

http://zetcode.com/wxpython/

A sample wxPython app

A GCode-STL viewer in Python (wxPython for the GUI and PyOpenGl for the 3D visualization): https://github.com/dkobozev/tatlin

A wxPython GUI builder

There are manu GUI builders, my favourite is wxFormBuilder. But only from version 3.3 it exports the code in Python, so here's the link to the right folder: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxformbuilder/files/wxformbuilder-nightly/3.3.04-beta/. Remember that the app export only the classes that you create/customize, you then have to create objects and launch the app, for example with a code like this:

  # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

  # Main library
  import wx
  # This is the file as exported from wxFormBuilder. It is just a .py file in the same folder
  import wxidelib

  # Create an app
  ex = wx.App()
  # Create a frame from my custom class
  ex1 = wxidelib.MyFrame1(None)
  # Show the frame! Otherwise it won't work. wxFormBuilder does not add this
  ex1.Show()
  # Initialize the event loop
  ex.MainLoop()

Reading data from serial and drawing it on wxPython

The important thing when reading data from serial, is to bind the reading of the data to a timer, so that the app will read data only at a certain rate and it won't crash. Here's a basic example that draws a line and a rectangle from the wxPython API (but you can use other Python libraries for drawing, like Matplotlib or Cairo).

Code

https://gist.github.com/openp2pdesign/a027a9fc5aac66e6a382.js