# Update: Toward Slicer 4.10.0

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [March 31, 2018, 8:16am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486 "2018-03-31T08:16:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jcfr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/jcfr/32/17825_2.png) [@jcfr](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/jcfr)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 8:16am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/1 "2018-03-31T08:16:50Z")

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### release status

We are getting close ! Thanks you everyone 👍

But considering that:

- ~~the last VTK update addressing the [#4510](https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4510) (_Cropping is broken with GPU Volume rendering if depth peeling is enabled_), also introduced a [regression](https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/merge_requests/4071#note_395250).~~

- there are still issues with the [extension build system](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/extension-not-built-by-build-system/2462). - **will be addressed in 4.10.0**

- ~~issue [#4511](https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4511) (_Large camera view angle (used in OpenVR) not properly handled with GPU Volume Rendering_) is not yet resolved. That seriously limits the usability of the SlicerVirtualReality extension.~~

- Pre-built and Locally-built 3dSlicer under Ubuntu 16.04 [do NOT start](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/pre-build-or-locally-build-3dslicer-under-ubuntu-16-04-does-not-start-failed-to-obtain-launcher-executable-name/2322) - **will be addressed in 4.10.0**

- ~~[#4530](https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4530) Slice viewer are too small after switching to conventional layout~~

- ~~[#4517](https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4517) macOS: Slicer dmg installer and Slicer app do not have the icon~~. Now fixed in [r27123](http://viewvc.slicer.org/viewvc.cgi/Slicer4?view=revision&revision=27123)

- ~~and [few other ones](https://issues.slicer.org/search.php?project_id=3&status%5B%5D=10&status%5B%5D=30&status%5B%5D=40&status%5B%5D=50&sticky=on&target_version=Slicer%204.9.0&sort=last_updated&dir=DESC&hide_status=-2&match_type=0),~~

I suggest we delay the release ~~by few days/s\>.~~

 

That should enable us to address the most critical issues and transition into their own extension: BRAINSTools, EMSegment, and SimpleITK. And ExpertAutomatedRegistration module into the existing [LegacyModules](https://github.com/Slicer/SlicerLegacyModules) extension.

### infrastructure updates

The past few days were spent updating the CI and build infrastructure so that we have Linux build done with Qt5. And here it is:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/6/6/66aae1fe2f437edac348d89a49939359cae58b58.png)

Since our server `metroplex` doesn’t have a host operating system suitable to generate distributable packages, it is using the build environment [slicer/buildenv-qt5-centos7](https://github.com/Slicer/SlicerBuildEnvironment) (itself built on top of the [dockbuild/centos7-devtoolset4-gcc5](https://github.com/dockbuild/dockbuild) dockbuild image)

Here is the section of the night script responsible for driving the Slicer Preview build and packaging. Note that `run_ctest_with_test` default to `FALSE`.

> <https://github.com/Slicer/DashboardScripts/blob/ab2f81bbab5ff720e25b5b1ac131d436169f7728/metroplex.sh#L4-L15>

The build itself uses the latest version of CMake (v3.11.0) and a [modified version](https://github.com/dockbuild/ninja-jobserver) of ninja generator that supports GNU make jobserver. This ensures the child processes spawn within each external projects communicate with the top-level process.

To control the number of overall processes, the [CMAKE\_JOB\_\* options](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/ninja-build-using-too-many-cores/2304) are particularly useful. In our case, we configure the compile and the link pool with different values. Considering `metroplex` has 32 cores and 32GB of memory, the settings are currently the following:

> <https://github.com/Slicer/DashboardScripts/blob/ab2f81bbab5ff720e25b5b1ac131d436169f7728/metroplex-slicer_preview_nightly.cmake#L47-L51>

Given the highly templated nature of some of our code (SimpleITK, ITK, vtkITK, …), the link jobs require a [lot of memory](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26415909/how-can-i-reduce-the-compile-time-memory-footprint-of-large-templates), for that reason we set a smaller maximum number of link job.

This will also be particularly useful on CircleCi where there is also 32core but _only_ [4GB](https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/configuration-reference/#resource_class) (by default), we will be able to leverage the number of core while drastically limiting the number of parallel link job.

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/2 "2018-04-03T14:53:36Z")

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Thanks for pulling this together Jc!

I’d add this slice rendering performance issue to the short list of issues that we should resolve before the release: [https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4496](https://issues.slicer.org/view.php?id=4496)

Reslicing is a core function and I think people will be disappointed if we have a release with a major regression.

@lassoan have you done any further testing or debugging on this?

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 5:58am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/3 "2018-04-04T05:58:48Z")

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> [@pieper](#):
>
> @lassoan have you done any further testing or debugging on this?

Yes, and I have a solution that makes slice browsing very fast (60-90fps now, instead of 10fps) on fast computers, with NVidia GPUs. I have some other attempts to improve performance, but those don’t seem to make much difference. See details here: [Screen Freezing · Issue #930 · Slicer/Slicer · GitHub](https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/pull/930).

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**Author:** ![jamesobutler](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/jamesobutler/32/7511_2.png) [@jamesobutler](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/jamesobutler)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/4 "2018-06-19T15:19:05Z")

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Out of curiosity, are there any new updates about when the next Slicer version is expected for release? I saw this post is about 12 weeks old and couldn’t find any new information indicating a new timeline for release.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/5 "2018-06-19T22:53:06Z")

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There are still 19 open issues for 4.9 that must be addressed. My estimation would be a few more weeks.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jcfr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/jcfr/32/17825_2.png) [@jcfr](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/jcfr)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/update-toward-slicer-4-10-0/2486/6 "2018-10-17T17:52:35Z")

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To follow up, all Slicer 4.9 issues have been addressed: [Issues · Slicer/Slicer · GitHub](https://issues.slicer.org/view_all_bug_page.php?filter=51308)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/e/7/e740787a8d7d0ae6db2906f98fcdbeb160d6213a.png)