Release 5.3.1 · SuperElastix/elastix

elastix 5.3.1 was released in March 2026. All binaries were created using ITK 5.4.5.

download	description	compiler	CMake version
elastix-5.3.0-manual.pdf	The manual
https://github.com/SuperElastix/elastix/releases/download/5.3.1/elastix-5.3.1-windows.zip	Windows 64 bit binaries	Visual Studio 2022 MSVC 194435223.0	CMake 4.2.3
https://github.com/SuperElastix/elastix/releases/download/5.3.1/elastix-5.3.1-ubuntu.zip	Linux binaries (Ubuntu 22.04)	GNU 11.4.0	CMake 4.2.3
https://github.com/SuperElastix/elastix/releases/download/5.3.1/elastix-5.3.1-macos.zip	MacOS 14 ARM64 binaries	AppleClang LLVM >= 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)	CMake 4.2.3

Notes:

When using the Windows binaries, you may need to install or update the appropriate Visual C++ redistributable on your machine (typically the one for X64): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist
When you want to use the IMPACT metric (that is, when you have the "Impact" metric as one of your registration parameters), you must have the run-time libraries of LibTorch 2.8.0 (from https://pytorch.org) in your library path, for elastix.

For Windows users: With this release, the executables (elastix.exe and transformix.exe) fully support Unicode (utf-8) file path names for registration parameter files and transform parameter files (pull request #1401). A big thank you to Bernhard Fröhler (@codeling)!
The IMPACT metric component that was introduced with elastix 5.3.0 is now loaded as a plugin, by means of "lazy loading", allowing anyone to use it without having to rebuild elastix (pull request #1396). Another big thank you to Valentin Boussot (@vboussot)!
For users of Linux and MacOS: The executables (elastix and transformix) now have a relative path to the directory of the third party library that we are using added to its RPATH (pull request #1404). So now it is no longer necessary for users to set their LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The extra versioned ".1" library files were removed (pull request #1416).
A small performance improvement was achieved for the metrics (specifically "DistancePreservingRigidityPenalty" and "TransformRigidityPenalty") and two transforms ("BSplineTransformWithDiffusion" "MultiBSplineTransformWithNormal") (pull request #1410).
Improved error handling for ParameterObject: it now throws an exception when the specified index or parameter name is not there (pull request #1420 and #1422).

#1401 ENH: use utf-8 via manifest on Windows by @codeling
#1404 ENH: Add relative path to lib directory to RPATH on Linux and MacOS
#1406 COMP: Replace MersenneTwister Initialize calls in tests with SetSeed
#1408 COMP: Use GTest::gtest and GTest::gtest_main targets for ITK > v5.4.5
#1409 Upgrade to Doxygen v1.16.1
#1410 Avoid calling ImageConstIterator::GetIndex() iteratively, in transforms and metrics
#1411 DOC: Exclude GTesting from Doxygen
#1396 ENH: Lazy loading for optional components (IMPACT) by @vboussot
#1412 Small MainBase style improvements regarding lazy component loading
#1414 Reduce #if blocks in MainBase::TryLoadComponentPlugin
#1417 STYLE: Remove deprecated member functions from elx::ParameterObject
#1416 Remove VERSION and SOVERSION target properties, replace "elx" prefix with "elx-", for library files
#1418 STYLE: Remove redundant file(MAKE_DIRECTORY ...) calls from CMakeLists
#1419 ENH: Use the full date and time (RFC 2822) in Doxygen generated HTML
#1420 ENH: Let ParameterObject throw an exception when index is out of range
#1422 ENH: ParameterObject.GetParameter throw when parameter name is not there
#1421 ENH: Add Chinese chars to path names Testing/Data and output directory
#1423 Add patch version number to library file names, bump elastix version to 5.3.1

Full Changelog: ed32a1b...ef34ca9