installing GEOS, PROJ, GDAL/OGR into a python virtualenv on Mac OS X

If each Framework of Kyngchaos is in the PATH, it is easy. Every framework has a Unix folder, with the libraries for compiling things like pyproj or geos python wherever you want, even in a private Python environment (I've never had a problem)

The only problem is that Gdal python is in the Gdal Framework. But in site-packages there a file gdal.pth

gdal.pth file:

import sys; sys.path.insert(0,'/Library/Frameworks/GDAL.framework/Versions/1.7/Python/site-packages')

if you do not want to compile it yourself, copy this file in your isolated python virtualenv

I make replicable Python/C/C++ GIS environments using virtualenv and zc.buildout. My ichpage https://github.com/sgillies/ichpage project is a little dated but could serve as a template for an up-to-date one (like the one I use for my Pleiades site development work and deployments). Blog post about it at http://sgillies.net/blog/856/i-can-has-python-and-gis-environments/.

If you need to use OSX you can easily avoid installation complexities by installing homebrew!

After this the only commands you will need to enter are:

brew install gdal

It will automatically install also proj and geos because they are gdal dependencies.