3rdparty library for development and packaging of color, film, and 3D applications, including pipelines and tools for OpenUSD, MaterialX, rendering, visualization, and digital content workflows.
3rdparty is a collection of scripts, configurations, and reference builds designed to simplify compiling third-party libraries on macOS from scratch. It focuses on providing:
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A curated set of libraries, tools, and media assets commonly used in film, color science, and image processing.
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Build scripts and configuration presets that remove the need to understand each individual library’s build system in depth.
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Full control over each dependency, its version, and its configuration flags.
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Up-to-date support for the latest macOS platforms, toolchains, and Xcode releases.
With 3rdparty, you can:
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Build and manage only the libraries you need, with default or custom configurations.
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Reproduce consistent, isolated, and debuggable builds for development or production.
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Test new library versions ahead of official releases or platform adoption.
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Understand and customize the build process rather than relying on binaries.
3rdparty is not a package manager. It does not replace tools like Homebrew or MacPorts.
Instead, it complements them by offering a controlled, transparent, and reproducible build environment for developers who need to understand and influence how their dependencies are built.
It is intended for environments where reproducibility, version control, and configuration transparency matter—such as VFX pipelines, color workflows, and specialized media tools.
CMake version > 3.27.0 is required.
http://www.cmake.org3rdparty is built using the build.sh script, which automates the compilation of all supported dependencies from source, including qt-everywhere-src-6.10.1 for UI/Toolkit support.
To build everything (Qt, libraries, debug and release variants) targeting macOS 12 and newer:
./build.sh all --target 12Qt will be downloaded and built in qt and 3rdparty in build. Targets will use the product version as CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET obtained using sw_vers -productVersion for compatibility. Build using arguments debug or release individually will not clean the build before starting.
./build.sh debug/release --target 12Debugging in Qt with hybrid frameworks make uses of the DYLD_IMAGE_SUFFIX environment variable. Set it to _debug to force the linker to use the debug version when the framework.
DYLD_IMAGE_SUFFIX=_debug
Each project is installed with absolute search paths for all names and dependent libraries. The 3rdparty project is not intended for instant deployment but instead requires a deployment step, such as macdeployqt or a similar tool, to correctly configure @rpath, @executable_path, and other runtime application dependencies.
The 3rdparty project can be built from the top directory by typing make. Advanced users can use CMake directly, see CMakeLists.txt.
The build directory contains platform, architecture and debug or release versions of projects. After each successful build binaries, libraries and related files will be installed with absolute install names.
Each application using the 3rdparty project should have it's own deployment process to remap install names before distribution.
Add cmake to path
export PATH=$PATH:/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/binUseful make commands
make Build all projects for development and test in 'build/platform'
make debug Build all projects with debugging symbols when possible.
make clean Get rid of all the temporary files in 'build/platform'.
make help Print all the make optionsAdditionally, a few helpful modifiers
make verbose=0 ... Show all compilation commands
make build_libs=1 ... Build libraries
make build_viewers=1 ... Build viewers
make build_media=1 ... Build mediaMacOS Tahoe v26.0.1
Release page:
https://github.com/mikaelsundell/3rdparty/releases/tag/macOS_Tahoe_v26.0.1
System configuration:
Darwin Kernel Version 25.0.0: Wed Sep 17 21:41:45 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.1.9~141/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64
Apple clang version 17.0.0 (clang-1700.3.19.1)
Target: arm64-apple-darwin25.0.0
Xcode 26.0.1
Build version 17A400
Commands used:
uname -a
clang --version
xcodebuild -versionNote: Earlier macOS builds were not tagged individually; version tagging began with macOS updates starting from v26.0.1.
- Project https://github.com/mikaelsundell/3rdparty
- Issues https://github.com/mikaelsundell/3rdparty/issues
Mikael Sundell - mikael.sundell@gmail.com
3rdparty packages and their copyrights:
Icon designed using images from Flaticon.com https://www.flaticon.com/authors/vectaicon
Alembic Copyright (c) 2013, Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. and Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd
Autoconf Copyright © 1992-1996, 1998-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc
Automake Copyright © 1992-1996, 1998-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc
Boost Copyright Beman Dawes, David Abrahams, 1998-2005 Copyright Rene Rivera 2004-2007
bzip2 Copyright © 1996-2007 Julian Seward
Draco Copyright 2019 The Draco Authors
Eigen Copyright (C) 2009-2015 Gael Guennebaud gael.guennebaud@inria.fr
FFmpeg Copyright (c) Fabrice Bellard
Freetype David Turner, Robert Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg
Gettext Copyright © 1992-1996, 1998-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc
Giflib Copyright (c) 1997 Eric S. Raymond
GLEW Copyright (C) 2002-2007, Milan Ikits <milan ikits[]ieee org> Copyright (C) 2002-2007, Marcelo E. Magallon <mmagallo[]debian org> Copyright (C) 2002, Lev Povalahev
GLM Copyright (c) 2005 - 2013 G-Truc Creation
Harfbuzz Copyright © 2018 Google, Inc.
Imath Copyright (c) 2002, Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucas Digital Ltd. LLC
Jasper Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Michael David Adams Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Image Power, Inc Copyright (c) 1999-2000 The University of British Columbia
Jpeg Copyright (C) 1991-1997, Thomas G. Lane
Json Copyright (c) 2013-2022 Niels Lohmann http://nlohmann.me.
Lcms2 Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Marti Maria Saguer
Libjpeg-turbo Copyright (C) 1994-1997, Thomas G. Lane Modified 2019 by Guido Vollbeding
Libpng Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Glenn Randers-Pehrson (Version 0.96 Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 Andreas Dilger) (Version 0.88 Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Guy Eric Schalnat, Group 42, Inc.)
Libraw Copyright (C) 2008-2021 LibRaw LLC
Libtool Copyright © 1992-1996, 1998-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc
LibWebp Copyright 2010 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved
LLVM Copyright (C) 2022 The llvm project
MaterialX TM & (c) 2017 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Nanobind Copyright (c) 2022 Wenzel Jakob
Nasm 1996-2017 The NASM Authors
Ninja Copyright 2011 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.
OIIO Copyright 2008 Larry Gritz and the other authors and contributors. All Rights Reserved.
OneTBB Copyright (c) 2005-2021 Intel Corporation
OpenCV Copyright © 2024 , OpenCV team
OpenEXR Copyright (c) 2002, Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucas Digital Ltd. LLC
OpenJPEG Copyright (c) 2002-2014, Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium Copyright (c) 2002-2014, Professor Benoit Macq Copyright (c) 2010-2011, Kaori Hagihara
OpenSubDiv Copyright 2022 Pixar
Pcre2 Original API code Copyright (c) 1997-2012 University of Cambridge New API code Copyright (c) 2016-2020 University of Cambridge
Pkg-config Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Red Hat Inc.
PTex Copyright 2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
Pybind Copyright (c) 2016 Wenzel Jakob wenzel.jakob@epfl.ch, All rights reserved.
Pyside Copyright (C) 2020 The Qt Company Ltd
Tclap Copyright (c) 2018 Google LLC All rights reserved
Tiff Copyright (c) 1988-1997 Sam Leffler Copyright (c) 1991-1997 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Usd Copyright 2022 Pixar
x264 Copyright Copyright (C) 2003-2013 x264 project
yasm Copyright Copyright (c) 2001-2007 Peter Johnson
Zlib Copyright Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jean-loup Gailly.