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BrainVoyager 24.2.5 - Download and Installation

BrainVoyager is our flagship product that provides a comprehensive, fast and elegant way to perform advanced neuroimaging data analysis and to create stunning visualizations. For more information, read the BrainVoyager release blog posts and check out the BrainVoyager User's Guide.

BrainVoyager EDU version. If you are new to BrainVoyager and want to check it out, we recommend to use the EDU version of BrainVoyager. The EDU version does not require a license and is fully functional. It is, however, limited to specific datasets that are used to teach BrainVoyager and (f)MRI data analysis more generally. Installing and running the EDU version is also useful to test compatibility of your computer hardware with BrainVoyager. For more details, follow the link to the EDU version.

Installers for Supported Operating Systems

macOS

BrainVoyager_24.2.5_arm64_Installer.pkg

BrainVoyager_24.2.5_x86-64_Installer.pkg

Windows

setup_bv_v24.2.5_win-x86-64.exe

Linux

bv_v24.2.5_linux-u24.04_x86-64_installer

To install BrainVoyager, please download the software using a link matching your target platform. Note that BrainVoyager 24 runs natively on ARM-based Apple Silicon as well as on 64-bit Intel hardware. If you use a newer Mac with Apple Silicon hardware, select the "arm64" version, otherwise use the "x86-64" version for Intel Macs.

BrainVoyager uses a software-based licensing system and will not run without a valid single computer or floating network license. If you use a floating network license, your license server needs to be running version 2.0 or newer in order to work with BrainVoyager 24. You need to accept the license agreement during installation.

Instructions for macOS

In case you have installed an older version of BrainVoyager, close any running instance prior to installation. We recommend to deinstall the older version of BrainVoyager by simply moving the "BrainVoyager" application entry in the "/Applications" folder to the Trash. The installer might still detect that an older version of BrainVoyager was installed before; in this case, the installer may show an "Upgrade" button instead of an "Install" button, but in both cases the same files will be installed.

Double-click the downloaded installation package file (“BrainVoyager_24.2.5_[platform]_Installer.pkg”) to start the BrainVoyager installer (replace "[platform]" with "arm64" or "x86-64"). The package and the BrainVoyager executable have been signed and notarized by Apple, and should start directly. If you do not see the BrainVoyager Installer window, click the Installer icon in the 'Dock' to show the Installer in front of other windows. Then simply follow the instructions of the package installer (see image sequence on the right). The installer will put the executable BrainVoyager bundle in the "/Applications" folder. For convenient access, User Guides, Getting Started Guides, notebooks, scripts and plugins will be placed in the user's “Documents/BrainVoyager" folder. This is also the default location of the "SampleData" and "Projects" folders.

Instructions for Windows

In case you have an older version of BrainVoyager, close any running instance prior to installation. We highly recommend to deinstall any older version of BrainVoyager before running the new installer. Uninstalling an old BrainVoyager version will not remove any custom data files. You can use the Windows “Add or Remove Applications” tool to remove an older installation.

To install the program, double click the downloaded installer executable (.exe file) and follow the instructions of the Installation Wizard. The installer will put the folder “BrainVoyager” with the executable "BrainVoyager.exe" in the “C:\Program Files” directory (“C:\” is the usual location of the operating system drive, it might be different in your case). For convenient access, the installer will put User Guides, Getting Started Guides, atlases, notebooks, scripts and plugins in the user's “Documents/BrainVoyager" directory. This is also the default location of the "SampleData" and "Projects" folders.

Matlab / COM Support. BrainVoyager can also be scripted from Matlab, for details see the "ScriptingBrainVoyager23fromMatlab.pdf" file that will be available in the "GettingStartedGuides" directory inside the user's "Documents\BrainVoyager" folder after installation.

Instructions for Linux

The downloaded installer should start directly after double- clicking it in the Ubuntu 'Files' app. If not, make sure that the installer file has read and executable permissions. On most modern Linux systems, this can be done by right clicking the file, selecting "Properties" (or similar) and then setting the appropriate permissions. Alternatively you can issue the following shell command (“[distro]” must be replaced with the downloaded version, e.g. “u24.04_x86-64”):

> chmod 755 bv_v24.2.5_linux-[distro]_installer

You can now start the installation by clicking (or double-clicking) on the file or by launching the installer directly from the terminal prompt:

> ./bv_v24.2.5_linux-[distro]_installer

After launching the installer, follow the instructions of the installation wizard. In case you update from a previous version of BrainVoyager, close any running instance prior to installation. We also strongly recommend to deinstall any older version of BrainVoyager by running the "maintenancetool" or "uninstall" executable, which is located in the previous installation folder. It is recommended to run the installer as a regular user (not as "root" or superuser) since this will install the program in your home directory (default: "/home/[user]/BrainVoyager" ('~/BrainVoyager') as suggested by the installer. For convenient access, user guides, getting started guides, notebooks and extensions (plugins and scripts) will be installed in the “~/Documents/BrainVoyager" sub-directory within your home directory, which is also the location of the "SampleData" and "Projects" folders.

Launching BrainVoyager. The program can be started by double-clicking 'BrainVoyager' inside the installation directory, e.g. from the 'Files' app on the Ubuntu desktop. More conveniently, BrainVoyager can be launched on Ubuntu from the 'Applications' overview, which can be shown by clicking the 'Show Apps' icon in the Dash. After launching BrainVoyager, you may also keep its icon in the Dash for fast access by right- clicking the icon and selecting 'Pin to Dash' in the appearing context menu (this may only work if you use the ' X11' display manager, see below). If you want to have also an icon on the Desktop, copy the installed "BrainVoyager.desktop"' file located in the ''~/.local/share/applications" directory to the '~/Desktop' folder. In case that a (double-) click on the icon does not launch BrainVoyager, you might need once to right-click the icon on the Desktop and select "Allow Launching" (or "Trust program" or similar).

Wayland or X11 windowing system. Recent Ubuntu versions use the "Wayland" windowing system as default instead of the older "X11" (Xorg) display manager. While BrainVoyager works on Wayland, the location of top-level windows (dialogs and panels) can currently not be set programmatically, which leads to inconveniences when trying to customise window positions. At this point we, thus, recommend to use the classical X11 window manager. You can check which window manager you are using by executing the following command in a terminal:

> echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

which will respond with ' wayland' or 'x11'. To switch from Wayland to X11 (or vice versa), edit the file '/etc/gdm3/custom.conf' by opening it e.g. in TextEditor or by using the nano editor as superuser:

> sudo nano etc/gdm3/custom.conf

Scroll down in the opened text file until you find this line:

#WaylandEnable=false

Uncomment that line (by removing the hash tag), then save, and exit the file. If you use TextEditor as a regular user it will ask you to authenticate to get elevated rights for saving the system file. After a restart (or after executing 'systemctl restart gdm3' in Terminal), the X11 windowing manager will be used. If you want to go back to Wayland, just comment out the line above and restart.

Licensing

If you do not yet have a license, you can use the free EDU version or ask for a time-limited trial license to evaluate BrainVoyager with your own data. In case you have already a valid software license, you can continue using BrainVoyager as before after installation and enjoy its new features. If you do not have a license, you will see a licensing screen after starting the software. To activate (unlock) a time- limited trial version, you need to send an email to “licensing [at] brainvoyager [dot] com” containing the displayed “Hardware-ID” and additional information for registration (name, institute/lab, mail address). Such an email is prepared automatically by clicking the “Prepare Email” button in the displayed "License Activation" dialog. Usually within a few days you will receive a license key and a license name/ID (e.g. TSKF307BC88-PETER-SUGAR). After entering this information in the licensing dialog, the software will be activated and it is ready to use for 30 days. More details about the licensing and activation process can be found on the page BrainVoyager Software Licensing.

In order to get the full version of BrainVoyager (after evaluating the EDU or trial version), please send an email to “sales [at] brainvoyager [dot] com” to purchase a (subscription) license. If you purchase the full version of BrainVoyager, you will get a key that unlocks all licensed features and the software can be used as long as requested in the purchased license. There is also a floating network license available allowing to use a licensed maximum number of computers concurrently from computers in a local (e.g. lab) network. For details, send an email to licensing [at] brainvoyager [dot] com.

Python Support

Since version 20, BrainVoyager supports an embedded Python interpreter that can be used from BV notebooks and a Python editor. Importantly, BrainVoyager extends the Python interpreter with methods and properties that gain access to BrainVoyager functionality enabling scripting and batch programming. To use Python, version 3.10 (recommended) or 3.12 needs to be available to be compatible with BrainVoyager 24. We recommend to install the Miniconda distribution, which has the advantage that one can easily create multiple environments with different Python versions and modules. If you define a Python 3.10 Miniconda3 environment with the name "env_bv_py310", it will be automatically picked up by BrainVoyager as the default Python version. You also need to install PySide6 in an existing Python 3.10 / 3.12 environment before Python can be used with BrainVoyager 24. For more details, follow the instructions to install and enable Python.

After installing Python 3.10 (or 3.12) as described, BrainVoyager will enable Python automatically in most cases when used the first time, e.g. when evaluating code in the Python consoke, a BV notebook or in the Python code editor. In case you want to switch to another 3.10 / 3.12 distribution (or environment name), you can use the "Select Python on Disk" item in the "Python" menu to point BrainVoyager to the respective version. It is recommended to run the code cells of the 'Test Python' notebook to check access to a specific Python version and installed modules.

The provided BV Notebook window can be launched from the respective icon in the toolbar or from the "Notebooks" menu. Several example notebooks are available in the "Documents/BrainVoyager/Notebooks" directory; this directory is also the default location when using the "Open" command in the "BV Notebook" window. When clicking the Python icon on the right side of the main toolbar, BrainVoyager presents a (docked or floating) interactive python console and a python development window that can be used to load, edit and save Python files. To learn how to use Python in notebooks and code editors to script processing routines or to add new functionality, consult the Python Developer Guide that is available from the "Python" menu. You will also find several example Python files in the "PythonScripts" and "PythonPlugins" sub-directories of the “Documents/BrainVoyager/Extensions" folder; these folders are displayed also as default in the "Files" panel on the left side of the Python development window.

System Requirements

macOS: BrainVoyager 24.2.5 is compatible with macOS 26 (Tahoe), macOS 15 (Sequoia), macOS 14 (Sonoma), and macOS 13 (Ventura). The "arm64" version of BrainVoyager 24 runs natively on Apple Silicon (M1, M2..) CPUs exploiting Apple's 'Accelerate' and 'Metal' frameworks for optimal performance. While the x86-64 version of BrainVoyager 24 might also run on Apple Silicon Macs, it is compiled for Intel processors and will, thus, run under Rosetta2 in emulation mode on Apple Silicon CPUs. We strongly recommend to use only the arm64 version on Apple Silicon Macs to benefit from native performance and to avoid compatibility issues with Python.

Windows: Version 24.2.5 of BrainVoyager is fully compatible with the Intel / AMD 64-bit (x86-64) version of Microsoft Windows 11.

Linux: Version 24.2.5 of BrainVoyager is compatible with modern 64 bit Linux distributions running on recent Intel/AMD machines. The provided and supported download version has been compiled on 64 bit Ubuntu 24.04 but it also works on newer Ubuntu versions as well as most other modern distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Fedora, and Debian. In case you get a "Untrusted application launcher" (or similar) dialog box when launching BrainVoyager the first time from its location in the file system, right-click the icon and select the "Allow Launching" or "Mark as Trusted" item in the context menu. If the program does not run on your x86-64 Linux distribution, send an email to "support [at] BrainVoyager [dot] com". Note, however, that we do not support Linux distributions that are older than 3 years.

Working memory. While many operations of BrainVoyager run with modest working memory (RAM) demands, a minimum of 8 GB is required and 16+ GB is recommended. For processing high-resolution data as used often in the context of ultra-high field (7T+) scanners, 32+ GB is recommended.

GPU support for graphics and compute. BrainVoyager is a graphics- and compute intensive program. On macOS It exploits Apple's Metal GPU framework for both graphics rendering as well as for acceleration of compute-intensive calculations. On Windows and Linux it uses OpenCL to parallelize computations on e,g, NVIDIA GPU's.

Note: To benefit from GPU acceleration (Metal, OpenCL), it must be turned on in the "Settings" dialog. For details how to test GPU availability and performance and how to enable it, inspect the topic Exploiting the Power of GP-GPUs in chapter "Additional Documentation" of the User's Guide.

Documentation

The User's Guide (available locally as well as online) provides basic and advanced information about BrainVoyager and can be easily invoked by clicking the "User's Guide" icon in the main toolbar or by clicking the "User's Guide" item (or "User’s Guide (Web)" item) in the "Help" menu. The BrainVoyager 24 User's Guide is also available as an eBook.

Several PDF files introducing various topics are also placed in the "Documents/BrainVoyager/GettingStartedGuides" folder after installation, including the BrainVoyager Getting Started Guide that is highly recommended for beginners. If you are upgrading BrainVoyager, you may want to check out the "News" topic of the User's Guide as well as the “Release Notes” topic. We highly recommend to read the release notes (also available from the "Help" menu) to learn about new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Release notes are available for the current as well as previous releases. Documentation is also available on this web site, including a PDF and eBook version of the User's Guide. If you have any questions, suggestions or bug reports, please send an email to support [at] BrainVoyager [dot] com.

Sample data

If you want to learn basic and advanced features of BrainVoyager (EDU), it may be useful to start with example data sets. The installers available on this page only install minimal sample data such as the small "NB_GSGData" dataset used by the "Introduction" notebook, and a high-resolution anatomical volume to test the deep learning segmentation tool. To download example more extensive datasets, click the "Sample Data Web Page" item in the "Help" menu of BrainVoyager or visit the example datasets page with your Browser. The analysis of the "Faces, Houses, Visual Fields" dataset is described in detail in the BrainVoyager Getting Started Guide.

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