系統需求 (System Requirements)
Supported Operating Systems
Required Hardware
Recommended Hardware
Supported Compilers for Developer Option
In order to add custom extensions to Amira using the Developer Option, a C++ compiler is
also required. The following C++ compilers are supported:
Amira relies on hardware-accelerated OpenGL 3D graphics. Please note that if software rendering is used,
rendering performance may drop significantly, especially for visualization techniques like volume rendering.
Some visualization techniques may also require 3D texturing or programmable shaders, available on recent
graphics boards. For platform-specific details on hardware acceleration, see below.
Amira requires a display resolution of at least 1024x768 and at least 15 bits of color depth. We strongly
recommend 1280x1024 with 24-bit color depth at least. Apart from 3D graphics hardware, probably the
most important system parameter is main memory. You should have at least 512 MB, preferably 2 GB or more.
The speed of the processor of course is also an important parameter. However it is less critical than the
graphics system and the main memory size. For the PC versions, we recommend at least a 2 GHz processor.
Microsoft Windows
Amira runs on Intel or AMD-based systems with Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP and
Microsoft Windows Vista, 32 bits and 64 bits.
Graphics Hardware: You should use a graphics board with OpenGL support and texture mapping
capabilities. Some visualization techniques may also require 3D texturing and programmable shaders,
available on recent graphics boards.
Note: On Windows Vista, you may want to disable Windows Aero for saving hardware resources
and achieving best 3D performance with Amira. In Control Panel, open Appearance and Personalization,
then click Personalization. You can alternatively right-click an empty spot on your desktop and click
Personalize in pop-up. Click Window Color and Appearance, and then click Open Classic Appearance
Properties for More Color Options. Now you can select a Color scheme different from Windows Aero,
such as the Windows classic theme.
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need Visual Studio 2005,
while Visual Studio 2008 is not officially supported for development. Even though not supported,
you may compile new modules with Visual Studio 2008, but you will need to install the Visual Studio 2008 C
runtimes additionally to Amira on any Windows PC that uses your custom modules.
Linux
The Linux version of Amira as been developed and tested on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 and 5.0.
On other Linux distributions this version might not run because certain required system libraries are missing
or because different versions of these libraries are installed. In particular you may need
to install libstdc++.so.5 included in the compat-libstdc++ package (or you may copy it into the Amira
installation directory under lib/arch-Linux...-Optimize/).
On Linux, Amira is only available for AMD64 / Intel 64 systems.
Graphics Hardware: Amira works with the current 3D graphics drivers from nVidia and ATI under XFree86 4/Xorg.
Notes:
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need gcc 4.1.x on RHEL 5.
Mac OS
The Mac version of Amira has been developed and tested on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) running
on an Intel CPU. This version might not work properly on other Mac OS releases or non-Intel CPU Apple platforms.
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need gcc 4.0.x
provided by the standard XCode development environment.
Graphics Hardware: Amira works with the current Mac 3D graphics drivers from nVidia and ATI.
Troubleshooting
Amira is a very demanding application that extensively uses high-end features. Experience shows that such
applications tend to reveal instabilities in system hardware, hardware drivers, and the operating system.
A common problem is insufficient main memory. We recommend you configure enough swap memory in
addition to physical memory. The total amount of virtual memory should be at least 1 GB. 2 GB would be even better.
Especially on PC platforms, OpenGL drivers today are not always as robust as desired. Also, system crashes
due to bad memory chips or unstable power-supply are not rare. If you experience problems or instabilities with
Amira on your Windows platform, we recommend that you follow these steps:
If this does not help, or if a reproducible error occurs on different computers, then it might be a bug
in the Amira software itself. Please report such bugs so that they can be eliminated in the next
release or a patch can be prepared.
- Windows – Windows® XP/Vista/7, 32-bit and 64-bit editions.
- Mac OS - Mac OS® X 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard) with Intel CPU, 32-bit application.
- Linux – Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 for x86_64 or compatible. The software can work on other distributions too, but this is neither guaranteed nor verified.
Required Hardware
- CPU supporting SSE2 instruction set. (Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron with Willamette kernel or more recent;
AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron or Sempron with Paris kernel or more recent) - At least 512 MB RAM
- Graphics card with OpenGL support and hardware accelerated texture mapping. Some visualization modules require graphics hardware with recent vertex and fragment shader support and a recent driver.
Recommended Hardware
- CPU - Multi-core CPU with 2 GHz; On Mac OS X an Intel CPU is recommended.
- Memory - 2 GB RAM
- Graphics card - A current "gaming" card of one of the main vendors (NVIDIA or ATI) with at least 512 MB video RAM is recommended. If OpenGL stereo support is needed (e.g AmiraVR or stereo projection), an NVIDIA Quadro FX or an ATI FireGL / FirePro card with the appropriate driver has to be installed.
Supported Compilers for Developer Option
In order to add custom extensions to Amira using the Developer Option, a C++ compiler is
also required. The following C++ compilers are supported:
- Windows 32-bit – Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (VC++ 8)
- Windows 64-bit – Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (VC++ 9)
- Mac OS X – 10.5 (Leopard) GNU gcc 4.0.x, 10.6 (Snow Leopard) GNU gcc 4.2.x as provided with the latest version of XCode
- Linux – GNU gcc 4.1.x
Amira relies on hardware-accelerated OpenGL 3D graphics. Please note that if software rendering is used,
rendering performance may drop significantly, especially for visualization techniques like volume rendering.
Some visualization techniques may also require 3D texturing or programmable shaders, available on recent
graphics boards. For platform-specific details on hardware acceleration, see below.
Amira requires a display resolution of at least 1024x768 and at least 15 bits of color depth. We strongly
recommend 1280x1024 with 24-bit color depth at least. Apart from 3D graphics hardware, probably the
most important system parameter is main memory. You should have at least 512 MB, preferably 2 GB or more.
The speed of the processor of course is also an important parameter. However it is less critical than the
graphics system and the main memory size. For the PC versions, we recommend at least a 2 GHz processor.
Microsoft Windows
Amira runs on Intel or AMD-based systems with Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP and
Microsoft Windows Vista, 32 bits and 64 bits.
Graphics Hardware: You should use a graphics board with OpenGL support and texture mapping
capabilities. Some visualization techniques may also require 3D texturing and programmable shaders,
available on recent graphics boards.
Note: On Windows Vista, you may want to disable Windows Aero for saving hardware resources
and achieving best 3D performance with Amira. In Control Panel, open Appearance and Personalization,
then click Personalization. You can alternatively right-click an empty spot on your desktop and click
Personalize in pop-up. Click Window Color and Appearance, and then click Open Classic Appearance
Properties for More Color Options. Now you can select a Color scheme different from Windows Aero,
such as the Windows classic theme.
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need Visual Studio 2005,
while Visual Studio 2008 is not officially supported for development. Even though not supported,
you may compile new modules with Visual Studio 2008, but you will need to install the Visual Studio 2008 C
runtimes additionally to Amira on any Windows PC that uses your custom modules.
Linux
The Linux version of Amira as been developed and tested on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 and 5.0.
On other Linux distributions this version might not run because certain required system libraries are missing
or because different versions of these libraries are installed. In particular you may need
to install libstdc++.so.5 included in the compat-libstdc++ package (or you may copy it into the Amira
installation directory under lib/arch-Linux...-Optimize/).
On Linux, Amira is only available for AMD64 / Intel 64 systems.
Graphics Hardware: Amira works with the current 3D graphics drivers from nVidia and ATI under XFree86 4/Xorg.
Notes:
- After a standard installation of Linux, hardware acceleration is not necessarily activated, although X-Windows and Amira may work fine. To enable OpenGL hardware acceleration specific drivers may have to be installed. This can dramatically increase rendering performance. Sometimes it is necessary to disable the stencil buffers (by starting Amira with the option -no_stencils) to get acceleration.
- On some distribution, you may see incorrect display of some parts of the user interface, such as the segmentation editor. This is a known Qt issue. You can work around this by disabling the composite option in the extension section of your XFree86.conf or Xorg.conf configuration file:
| Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "disable" EndSection |
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need gcc 4.1.x on RHEL 5.
Mac OS
The Mac version of Amira has been developed and tested on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) running
on an Intel CPU. This version might not work properly on other Mac OS releases or non-Intel CPU Apple platforms.
In order to add custom extensions to Amira with Amira Developer Pack you will need gcc 4.0.x
provided by the standard XCode development environment.
Graphics Hardware: Amira works with the current Mac 3D graphics drivers from nVidia and ATI.
Troubleshooting
Amira is a very demanding application that extensively uses high-end features. Experience shows that such
applications tend to reveal instabilities in system hardware, hardware drivers, and the operating system.
A common problem is insufficient main memory. We recommend you configure enough swap memory in
addition to physical memory. The total amount of virtual memory should be at least 1 GB. 2 GB would be even better.
Especially on PC platforms, OpenGL drivers today are not always as robust as desired. Also, system crashes
due to bad memory chips or unstable power-supply are not rare. If you experience problems or instabilities with
Amira on your Windows platform, we recommend that you follow these steps:
- Click on all the demo scripts in the Online User's Guide. If the system crashes, turn off hardware acceleration (choose the extended button from the Windows display settings dialog) and try again. If this eliminates theproblem, there is a bug in your OpenGL driver. Try to get a new driver from the web site of the manufacturer of your graphics board.
- Try using a different color depth in the Windows display settings dialog. Try 24 or 32 bit.
- Load the lobus.am data set and visualize it with a Voltex module. Turn on the spin rotation (turn it with the mouse in the viewer and release the mouse button while moving the mouse, so that the object continues moving). Let it run overnight (turn off the screen saver). If the system has crashed or frozen the next morning, you probably have a hardware problem.
If this does not help, or if a reproducible error occurs on different computers, then it might be a bug
in the Amira software itself. Please report such bugs so that they can be eliminated in the next
release or a patch can be prepared.