Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Build Instructions/Prerequisites/Qt

For the latest Slicer documentation, visit the read-the-docs.

Binary vs build-from-source ?

If you build Slicer on ...

Linux

• Using binary works great for both Debug and Release build of Slicer. See #Download_links and #Installation_instruction

Mac

• Using binary works great for both Debug and Release build of Slicer. See #Download_links and #Installation_instruction

• To use QtCreator and the Slicer designer plugins, a possible option is to build QtCreator against the installed Qt libraries. See discussion on the mailing list.

Mac with Homebrew

As an alternative to the binary, you can install QT 4.8.7 with homebrew on mac 10.12:

brew tap cartr/qt4
brew tap-pin cartr/qt4
brew install qt@4
brew install qt-webkit@2.3

Windows

• Normally you should plan to build Qt from source to have complete control over the process. See one-liner build command or more detailed #Build_instructions.
  • You may find that the binary downloads are usable for older Visual Studio versions (but not for the currently official Visual Studio 2013 version): binary. If you use .7z varaints extract them in the default location C:\Qt\ otherwise that installation will not be properly configured for use with CMake.
• Debug/release mode builds: The recommendation for developers is to build Slicer and Qt at least in Debug mode. To be able to test real-world performance, developers should also build Qt and Slicer in release mode (in a separate build tree), because some algorithms are 10x or more faster in release mode.
  • Rationale: Using the Qt Designer on Windows requires that the Slicer plugins are in the same mode as Qt. If Qt was compiled in Release mode (default), Slicer would have to be compiled in Release mode as well. However if Qt is compiled in Debug mode only, Slicer has to be compiled in Debug too. When Qt is in "Release and Debug" mode only the Release version of Designer.exe is generated, Slicer would have to be compiled in Release to be able to use the Qt Designer.
• 32/64-bit builds: When using 32-bit builds, the available memory space is so limited that the application would run out of memory and crash even working with average-sized data sets. Therefore 64-bit build is recommended for general use. 32-bit applications should only be used when running 3D Slicer on 32-bit operating system (such as a tablet with 32-bit Windows), working with limited-size problems (simple surfaces, image slices, low-resolution image volumes).

Download Qt: Source and Binaries

Download links

The following table list the link allowing to download either the recommended source code or binary of Qt.

	Linux	Mac		Windows
		SnowLeopard	Lion, Mountain Lion	VS2008	VS2010	VS2013
	64bits	64bits	64bits	64bits	64bits	64bits
Qt source link	4.8.6	4.7.4	4.8.6	4.8.6	4.8.6	4.8.7
Qt binary link	(src or apt-get package)	4.7.4 4.7.4 (optional: debug libs)	4.8.6 4.8.6 (optional: debug libs)	4.8.6 (unsigned installer)	4.8.6 (unsigned installer)

Qt version specific issues

• Issues for Qt < 4.7.4 are not reported

All

• NA

Linux

• NA

Mac

• Problem building Qt on MacOSX 10.9. See https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-32237. Patch: https://gist.github.com/ejtttje/7163a9ced64f12ae9444.

Windows

• NA

How to change the minimum required version ?

• This applied only for Slicer < r22466.

• It's indeed possible to use a different version, just be aware that moving forward in time, things may not work as expected. Even worse Slicer may simply fail to compile.

• By configuring Slicer using -DSlicer_REQUIRED_QT_VERSION:STRING=4.7.0, you will be able to change the minimum required version.

• See 898bb14e, r19698, Mailing list

Build instructions

Linux

See Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Build_Instructions#Linux

Mac

Similar to Linux configuration. Note that -arch x86_64 has been added.

For earlier versions of Xcode and Mac OS X

mkdir qt-everywhere-opensource-build-4.7.4
tar xvfz qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4.tar.gz
cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.7.4
./configure -prefix ../qt-everywhere-opensource-build-4.7.4 -debug-and-release -opensource -confirm-license -no-qt3support -webkit -arch x86_64 -nomake examples -nomake demos -sdk /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk
make -j8
make install

On the latest Xcode versions (4.3) and Lion (10.7) the Developer directories have moved. The command is now:

./configure -prefix ../qt-everywhere-opensource-build-4.7.4 -debug-and-release -opensource -confirm-license -no-qt3support -arch x86_64 -nomake examples -nomake demos -webkit -sdk /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.7.sdk

• Consider reading: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7/developing-on-mac.html)

• Note:
  • If building against SDK 10.6 or 10.7, you will probably get link errors similar to what's described in [1] and [2]. Solution is provided here here.

Windows

For current official version (using VS2013), use one-liner build command.

Manual build instructions for older (not officially supported) configurations

Use a windows extracter to unzip the Qt archive (don't use cygwin unzip it), and follow the instructions below.

Qt 4.7.4 / VS2008

• Rename the folder into for example qt-4.7.4-64-vs2008-rel.
  • Note: Each build of Qt should be done it its own folder !
  • Note: A 32 bit debug build would be done in a folder named qt-4.7.4-32-vs2008-deb

• Launch the msvc2008 command prompt
  • 32-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC08->Tools -> "Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt"
  • 64-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC08->Tools -> "Visual Studio 2008 x64 Win64 Command Prompt"

• Configure
  • For debug: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2008 -opensource -confirm-license -debug -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • For release: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2008 -opensource -confirm-license -release -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • Note: win32-msvc2008 is used for both 32 and 64-bit.
  • Note: The option -prefix doesn't work on Windows.
  • Note: According to [3] Qt does not support msvc2008 on windows xp. However, running configure.exe with no -platform argument seems to work. If you run configure with the -platform argument first by mistake, and if configure -clean doesn't work, then you may need to start from a fresh extraction from the .zip archive before running configure.exe again with no -platform, unless you can run nmake with the config clean target.

• Build using nmake
  • Note: building with webkit support requires that src/3rdparty/webkit/WebCore/tmp/moc/{debug,release}_shared/mocinclude.tmp be removed. else you will get linker errors like QNetworkReplyHandler.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual struct QMetaObject const * __thiscall WebCore::FormDataIODevice::metaObject(void)const (?metaObject@FormDataIODevice@WebCore@@UBEPBUQMetaObject@@XZ)
  • Note: If you encounter the following error api\qscriptextensionplugin.h(43): Error: Undefined interface,, delete the files \src\script\tmp\moc\debug_shared\mocinclude.tmp and \src\script\tmp\moc\release_shared\mocinclude.tmp and restart nmake. For more info, please see QTBug 6470].

Qt 4.8.5 / VS2010

• Rename the folder into for example qt-4.8.5-64-vs2010-rel.
  • Note: Each build of Qt should be done it its own folder !
  • Note: A 32 bit debug build would be done in a folder named qt-4.8.5-32-vs2010-deb

• Launch the msvc2010 command prompt
  • 32-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC10->Tools -> "Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt"
  • 64-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC10->Tools -> "Visual Studio 2010 x64 Win64 Command Prompt"

• Download pearl http://strawberryperl.com/ and create a new folder into for example strawberry.

• Download jom and create a new folder into for example jom.
  • Add this new folder into the path (system properties)

• Configure
  • For debug: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2010 -debug -opensource -confirm-license -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • For release: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2010 -release -opensource -confirm-license -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • Note: win32-msvc2010 is used for both 32 and 64-bit.
  • Note: The option -prefix doesn't work on Windows.

• Build using jom -jn
  • Note: n is the number of cores of your CPU, so adapt it.
  • Note: building with webkit support requires that src/3rdparty/webkit/WebCore/tmp/moc/{debug,release}_shared/mocinclude.tmp be removed. else you will get linker errors like QNetworkReplyHandler.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual struct QMetaObject const * __thiscall WebCore::FormDataIODevice::metaObject(void)const (?metaObject@FormDataIODevice@WebCore@@UBEPBUQMetaObject@@XZ)
  • Note: If you encounter the following error api\qscriptextensionplugin.h(43): Error: Undefined interface,, delete the files \src\script\tmp\moc\debug_shared\mocinclude.tmp and \src\script\tmp\moc\release_shared\mocinclude.tmp and restart jom. For more info, please see QTBug 6470].

Qt 4.8.6 / VS2012

• Make sure your Visual Studio 2012 is patched with the latest patch (e.g. patch 4).

• Download the source archive, extract and rename the folder into for example qt-4.8.6-64-vs2012-rel.
  • Note: Each build of Qt should be done it its own folder !
  • Note: A 32 bit debug build would be done in a folder named qt-4.8.6-32-vs2010-deb

• Replace the webkit src\3rdparty\webkit\Source\JavaScriptCore\wtf\hashset.h file with this file
• For VS2013, replace the MathExtras.h file [4]
• For VS2015, use the 4.8.7 source [5] and apply the patch [6]
• Launch the msvc2012 command prompt
  • 32-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC12->Visual Studio Tools -> "VS2012 x86 Command Prompt"
  • 64-bit build: Start menu -> MSVC12->Visual Studio Tools -> "VS2012 x64 Win64 Command Prompt"

• If you want openssl support (optional):
  • Download perl http://strawberryperl.com/ and create a new folder into for example strawberry.

• Configure
  • For debug: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2012 -debug -opensource -confirm-license -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • For release: configure.exe -platform win32-msvc2012 -release -opensource -confirm-license -webkit -nomake examples -nomake demos
  • Note: win32-msvc2012 is used for both 32 and 64-bit.
  • Note: The option -prefix doesn't work on Windows.

• Build using nmake
  • Alternatively you can use jom (much faster)
    • Download jom and create a new folder into for example jom.
    • Add this new folder into the path (system properties)
    • Build using jom -jn
      • Note: n is the number of cores of your CPU, so adapt it.