License

See the license conditions.

Release Notes

• development - released nightly
• 1.0 - Not Yet Released
• All Releases

Table of Contents

• Build and Install GEMC from source code
• Run GEMC in a Docker Container

Build and Install GEMC from Source

Please see the GEMC/Geant4 Software Prerequisites in the appendix for the requirements.

Obtaining the source

For illustration only, we will use /path/to/gemc as the installation location, and 1.0 as the version to be installed.

Create a source sub-dir in the installation location and cd into it:

mkdir -p /path/to/gemc/1.0/source
cd /path/to/gemc/1.0/source

There are two approaches:

cd /path/to/gemc/1.0/source
wget https://github.com/gemc/src/releases/tag/1.0.tar.gz
tar -xvzf 1.0.tar.gz --strip-components=1

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/gemc/src .

Compile and install GEMC

The meson build system is used to compile and install GEMC. A build directory is used:

meson setup build --native-file=core.ini --prefix=/path/to/gemc/1.0
meson compile -C build
meson install -C build

• The setup phase will check for the required dependencies and fetch external libraries.
• The compile phase will build the code using all your available CPU cores. Use -jN to limit the number of cores used.
• The install phase will copy the binaries, libraries, and python modules to the installation directory.

Build Options

• Use -v at build time to log the compiler commands
• meson test -v will run several tests of various components of GEMC and also create a database with the examples geometries.
• To wipe out the build directory and start over, use rm -rf build and then re-run the commands above.

Post Installation

Add the bin and api directories to your PATH and PYTHONPATH environment variables.

export GEM_VERSION=1.0
export PATH=/path/to/gemc/$GEM_VERSION/bin:$PATH
export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/gemc/$GEM_VERSION/api:$PYTHONPATH

You can add the lines above to your shell configuration file (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc), and use $GEMC_VERSION to control the version of GEMC you want to use.

Run GEMC in a Docker Container

You can use docker to run GEMC without having to install it or any of its dependencies. The available GEMC docker images are listed below.

It is recommended to bind a local directory to save and store your work. For illustration purposes, below we will bind the image path /mywork to the local dir ~/mywork and we will use the image ghcr.io/gemc/gemc:latest-ubuntu24.

For Apple Silicon Mac you may need to add the option --platform linux/amd64 to the docker commands below.

Run docker in batch mode

docker run -it --rm -v ~/mywork:/mywork ghcr.io/gemc/gemc:latest-ubuntu24 bash

Run docker and use a browser for the graphical interface:

docker run -it --rm  -v ~/mywork:/mywork  -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/gemc/gemc:latest-ubuntu24

Then point your browser to http://localhost:8080/vnc.html to access the graphical interface.

Appendix

GEMC and Geant4 Software Prerequisites

• Builders and compilers:

  • C++ Compiler and Standard Library supporting the C++17 Standard
  • CMake 3.16 or later
  • Meson 1.9.0 or later

• Packages, compiled from source against the same C++ Standard as GEMC (C++17 by default):

  • Geant4: 11.3.2 or higher
  • CLHEP: 2.4.6.0 or higher
  • Xerces-C: 3.2 or higher

• Packages installed with your system package manager:

  • expat: 2.0.1 or higher
  • zlib: 1.2.3 or higher
  • Qt6: 6.5 or higher (optional, required for GUI
  • ROOT: 6.36.04 or higher (optional, required for ROOT output)

One liners installation of basic packages and dependencies on some popular Linux distributions:

dnf install -y --allowerasing git make cmake gcc-c++ gdb valgrind expat-devel mariadb-devel \
sqlite-devel python3-devel ninja-build mesa-libGLU-devel libX11-devel libXpm-devel libXft-devel \
libXt-devel libXmu-devel libXrender-devel xorg-x11-server-Xvfb xrandr bzip2 wget curl nano bash \
zsh hostname gedit environment-modules pv which psmisc procps mailcap net-tools rsync patch \
bash-completion xterm x11vnc openbox lxqt-panel dejavu-sans-mono-fonts qt6-qtbase-devel root liblsan \
libasan libubsan libtsan tbb 

dnf install -y --allowerasing git make cmake gcc-c++ gdb valgrind expat-devel mariadb-devel \
sqlite-devel python3-devel ninja-build mesa-libGLU-devel libX11-devel libXpm-devel libXft-devel \
libXt-devel libXmu-devel libXrender-devel xorg-x11-server-Xvfb xrandr bzip2 wget curl nano bash 
zsh hostname gedit environment-modules pv which psmisc procps mailcap net-tools rsync patch \
bash-completion xterm x11vnc openbox tint2 dejavu-sans-mono-fonts qt6-qtbase-devel root liblsan \
libasan libubsan libtsan tbb

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata git make cmake \
g++ gdb valgrind libexpat1-dev libmysqlclient-dev libsqlite3-dev python3-dev ninja-build \
libglu1-mesa-dev libx11-dev libxpm-dev libxft-dev libxt-dev libxmu-dev libxrender-dev \
xvfb x11-xserver-utils bzip2 wget curl nano bash zsh hostname gedit environment-modules pv \
which ca-certificates psmisc procps mailcap net-tools rsync patch bash-completion xterm \
x11vnc openbox tint2 dbus-x11 fonts-dejavu-core qt6-base-dev libqt6opengl6t64 \
libqt6openglwidgets6t64 qt6-base-dev-tools liblsan0 libasan8 libubsan1 libtsan2 libtbb12

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata git make cmake \
g++ gdb valgrind libexpat1-dev libmariadb-dev libsqlite3-dev python3-dev ninja-build \
libglu1-mesa-dev libx11-dev libxpm-dev libxft-dev libxt-dev libxmu-dev libxrender-dev \
xvfb x11-xserver-utils bzip2 wget curl nano bash zsh hostname gedit environment-modules pv \
which ca-certificates psmisc procps mailcap net-tools rsync patch bash-completion xterm \
x11vnc openbox tint2 dbus-x11 fonts-dejavu-core qt6-base-dev libqt6opengl6 libqt6openglwidgets6 \
qt6-base-dev-tools liblsan0 libasan8 libubsan1 libtsan2 libtbb12 

pacman-key --init && pacman-key --populate
pacman -Sy --noconfirm archlinux-keyring
pacman -Syu --noconfirm --needed git make cmake gcc gdb valgrind expat mariadb mariadb-libs \
sqlite python python-pip ninja mesa glu libx11 libxpm libxft libxt libxmu libxrender \
xorg-server-xvfb xorg-xrandr bzip2 wget curl nano bash zsh inetutils gedit pv which fakeroot \
psmisc procps mailcap net-tools rsync patch bash-completion ncurses xterm tigervnc openbox \
ttf-dejavu qt6-base root gcc-libs tbb 

Supported and tested platforms

• Linux:

  • Fedora 40 or later
  • AlmaLinux 9 or later
  • Ubuntu 24.04 or later
  • Debian 12 or later
  • Arch Linux (rolling release)

• macOS: 15 or later (Sequoia)