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Requirements for Running iSMS

iSMS comes in a compiled version (.exe) and an open-source version.

Requirements for the compiled version:

The compiled version only requires a free MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR) environment installed in order to run. The MCR is automatically downloaded and installed when installing the software.

Requirements for the open-source version:

The software automatically checks if you have the proper toolboxes installed and will let you know if you don't. The software has been fully tested on MATLAB R2014a on Windows platforms. We have additionally tested the software positive on Mac OS X R2014a, R2015a and Windows R2014b, R2015a.

Computational recommendations:

It is highly advised to get a minimum of 8 Gb RAM, preferably more.

Why MATLAB?

It could be argued that MATLAB is not the ideal platform for distributing software. After all, MATLAB is not free. The (supported) capabilities of graphical user-interfaces (GUIs) in MATLAB applications are ancient. MATLAB has a reputation of being slow (although it necessarily is not), and keeping track of the changes introduced by new MATLAB versions can be a tedious task.

MATLAB was chosen because of the ease of which visualization methods and analysis algorithms can be tested and implemented in the software. Keeping the core of the software in MATLAB allows developers to modify, test and expand the software in the future. At the same time, the user-interfaces allow researchers who may be unfamiliar or inexperienced with MATLAB to use all the features of the program without spending weeks on learning how to use it.