[MCX Announcement] MCX/MMC/MCX-CL v2019.4

[Qianqian Fang]

Dear colleagues,

I just want to let you know that a new release of MCX/MMC/MCXStudio, v2019.4, are available for download. You may directly access the new packages from the below URL:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mcx/files/

We highly recommend downloading the all-in-one package, MCXStudio, to simplify installation - it contains all software components including MCX/MMC/MCXCL/MCXLAB/MMCLAB/MCXLABCL.

Although it has only been one short month after our previous release, v2019.3, our MCX/MMC github repos have been quite busy and we have packed in the new release with significant improvements. 

Below list summarizes some of the major changes that worth highlighting:

• MCX now supports continuously varying media - one can specify mua or both mua/mus on a voxel basis, please checkout the new -K/--multibyte flag
  
• One can customize detected photon data fields and save only the data needed - checkout the new -w/cfg.savedetflag options
  
• MMC now supports saving diffuse reflectance on the exterior triangular surfaces
  
• With the cyclic boundary condition added earlier, you can use MCX to simulate infinite media, checkout this new demo script
  
• MCXStudio GUI now reverts back to the single-window mode for more intuitive layout
• New function, json2mcx.m, converts mcx json input to mcxlab cfg; the reverse operation, mcx2json.m is already supported

For MMC, we have also received several bug reports from our users and fixed the below critical bugs:

• Fix the corrupted .mch binary output data files - impact all mmc binary mch files created by v2019.3 or v2019.3-1
  
• Fix the bug that prevents mmc binary from saving .mch file (can only save file when --saveexit is used)
• Fix the mmclab libgomp-1.dll error on Windows 10
  

If you use MMC executable for your projects, I urge you to upgrade your mmc to the v2019.4 release to avoid garbled data files. In other cases, you are still recommended to use the latest software.

To read more about this new release, please browse our detailed Release Notes on our Wiki:

http://mcx.space/wiki/?Get

In addition, I started posting more timely software updates using Twitter. If you are interested in learning the latest development news for mcx/mmc, feel free to "Follow" my account from the below link:

https://twitter.com/FangQ

One more thing, we are going to run our 3rd MCX training workshop (free) this year in Boston (in early August). The date and rough agenda of the event will be announced shortly. If you are interested in taking advantage of this free workshop, please stay tuned for further announcement.

Cheers and looking forward to a productive summer for MCX/MMC development (and interactions with you)!

Qianqian Fang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Dept of Bioengineering, Northeastern University