FreeSurfer Build Guide

This page walks through the process of building the freesurfer source code. For an introduction to the repository and the development process, visit the DevGuide.

Freesurfer depends on a variety of third-party tools, and the BuildRequirements page recommends the easiest ways to install these dependencies on your machine. External developers should make sure they correctly set up the freesurfer packages directory as instructed.

Source

Clone the freesurfer source code from github. If you're planning to commit changes to the main repository, make sure you clone from a forked repository instead and follow the recommended development cycle.

git clone https://github.com/freesurfer/freesurfer.git

Annex Data

The freesurfer repository contains many large binary files that can't be stored directly on github. The data can be retrieved from our server with git-annex, but the data source must first be setup as a remote repository. For those developing on the Martinos filesystem, cd into your repository and run:

git remote add datasrc file:///space/freesurfer/repo/annex.git

For those developing outside of Martinos, run:

git remote add datasrc https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/pub/dist/freesurfer/repo/annex.git

Then, to download the annex data, run the following from the top-level directory:

git fetch datasrc
git annex get .

Further annex instructions can be found on the GitAnnex page.

Configuration

Freesurfer supports both in-source and out-of-source builds using CMake. To configure a simple in-source build tree, enter the top-level directory of the repository and run:

cmake .

Users not developing on the Martinos filesystem will get an error indicating that external developers must provide a valid FS_PACKAGES_DIR path. To resolve this, you must point cmake to the full path of your packages directory (configured via the BuildRequirements instructions) with the following option:

cmake . -DFS_PACKAGES_DIR="/path/to/packages"

This path can also be set in an FS_PACKAGES_DIR environment variable, so that it doesn't need to be supplied on the command line for every new configuration.

Install Path

By