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Install Phytograph

Phytograph runs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows 10/11, and Linux (x64, glibc 2.38 or newer — see Install on Linux).

Download

Download the installer for your platform — each link always fetches the newest release:

Platform Download
macOS (Apple Silicon, M1/M2/M3/M4) Phytograph-arm64.dmg
macOS (Intel) Phytograph-x64.dmg
Windows 10/11 Phytograph-Setup.exe
Linux (x64, glibc 2.38+) Phytograph-x86_64.AppImage

Not sure which macOS build you need? Apple menu → About This Mac: a Chip line starting with "Apple" means Apple Silicon; an Intel processor means the Intel build.

For older versions, release notes, and checksums, see the GitHub Releases page.

Install on macOS

  1. Double-click the .dmg file.
  2. Drag the Phytograph icon into your Applications folder.
  3. Eject the disk image and launch Phytograph from Applications or Spotlight.

The first launch takes about 30 seconds while the bundled scientific Python environment unpacks itself. Subsequent launches are instant.

Phytograph is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a normal double-click — no security warning.

If macOS still says the app can't be opened

Older or unsigned builds may show "Phytograph can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software". Right-click the app in Applications, choose Open, and click Open in the dialog. You only need to do this once.

Install on Windows

  1. Double-click Phytograph-Setup.exe.
  2. If SmartScreen warns you, click More info → Run anyway.
  3. Follow the installer prompts.
  4. Launch Phytograph from the Start menu.

If the browser blocks the download

Edge and Chrome flag installers that few people have downloaded yet, and the file stays in your Downloads folder as a partial .crdownload until you explicitly keep it.

Edge — press ++ctrl+j++ to open Downloads, hover the Phytograph entry, click the … menu, choose Keep, then Show more → Keep anyway.

Chrome — open chrome://downloads, find the entry, and click Keep (it may sit behind a … menu on the warning bar).

Both take two clicks: the first expands the warning, the second releases the download. Closing the panel in between leaves the partial file.

If Windows blocks the installer

Right-click Phytograph-Setup.exe → Properties → tick Unblock at the bottom of the General tab → Apply, then run it. This is only needed when the More info → Run anyway link is hidden by a managed policy.

If Phytograph opens but says a component was blocked

The window opens, then a dialog reports that Windows blocked one of Phytograph's components and the compute backend cannot start. The log shows "An Application Control policy has blocked this file". Windows is refusing to load one of the libraries Phytograph ships with, and restarting or reinstalling the same version will not change that.

Update first. Versions up to 0.94.0 signed the installer and the program files but not the libraries inside the compute backend, which is what this check rejects. Later versions ship every library signed, so installing the current release is usually the whole fix.

If the current release is still blocked:

  • Work or university PC — the policy is set by your organization. Ask your IT administrator to allow Phytograph. Every program file and library in it carries a signature: most are signed by the publisher named on the installer's security prompt, and third-party components that arrive already signed keep their original vendor's signature: Microsoft, the Python Software Foundation and Intel. A rule that allows only Phytograph's publisher also needs those three allowed.
  • Personal PC — open Windows Security → App & browser control → Smart App Control to see whether it is on. It can only be switched off as a whole, and Windows will not let you turn it back on without resetting the PC, so please report the problem before doing that.

Install on Linux

Phytograph ships as a single AppImage — nothing to install, but it does need a reasonably recent distribution (see the requirement below).

Run it from a terminal:

chmod +x Phytograph-x86_64.AppImage
./Phytograph-x86_64.AppImage

As with macOS, the first launch takes about 30 seconds while the bundled Python environment unpacks itself.

Requires glibc 2.38 or newer

Check your system first:

ldd --version

The first line ends with your glibc version. 2.38 or higher is required.

Works Does not work
Ubuntu 23.10+ (24.04 LTS and later) Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and older
Debian 13 "trixie" Debian 12 and older
Fedora 39+ RHEL / Rocky / AlmaLinux 8 and 9
Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, other rolling releases

On an older system the failure is confusing rather than obvious: the AppImage starts and the Phytograph window appears, but the compute backend cannot load and nothing works. The log records a loader error naming GLIBC_2.38. If you see that, this is the cause — the app cannot run on that machine, and no setting or permission will change it.

This is a hard limit of how the Linux build is compiled, not a policy choice. Many HPC and institutional machines run RHEL 8/9 or Ubuntu 22.04 and are affected; if that is your situation, please open an issue so we can weigh building for an older baseline.

Double-clicking usually won't work

Most Linux file managers — GNOME Files (Nautilus), Nemo, Caja — refuse to launch executables, for security reasons, so double-clicking an AppImage does nothing even after chmod +x. Launch it from a terminal as shown above. If you want a menu entry, create a .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/ pointing at the AppImage.

AppImage prerequisites

The AppImage needs FUSE to mount itself. Most desktop distributions ship it; on a minimal install run sudo apt install libfuse2 (Debian/Ubuntu) or your distribution's equivalent. Alternatively, extract and run without FUSE: ./Phytograph-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run.

What gets installed

Phytograph ships as a single self-contained application bundle. It includes its own Python environment with all scientific libraries (open3d, scipy, pyhelios) embedded. You don't need to install Python, Conda, or anything else separately.

The app stores its preferences and recent files list in:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/phytograph/
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\phytograph\
  • Linux: ~/.config/phytograph/

(Lowercase — this directory is named after the app's internal name. macOS and Windows are case-insensitive so the capitalization there makes no difference, but on Linux it does.)

Imported point clouds are also cached on disk in a streaming format, so reopening a scan is fast. That cache is separate, and safe to delete when you need the space — anything still reachable from its original file is rebuilt on demand:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Caches/Phytograph/octrees/
  • Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Phytograph\cache\octrees\
  • Linux: ~/.cache/Phytograph/octrees/

What's next

Open the app and continue to Your first import.