If you download vaa3d directly and run it, you will get some version errors. This can be done as follows: first download the pre-compiled Qt 4.7.1 from https://home.penglab.com/tmp/qt7.tar.gz and extract it to the /usr/local/Trolltech directory; download Vaa3D 3.458 from GitHub; go to vaa3d64.app package contents, go to macOS and run vaa3d64 inside. This will allow you to run vaa3d.

If you don't download the pre-compiled Qt 4.7.1 beforehand, you will get the error that Vaa3D is trying to call "QtGUI" from a location that doesn't exist. Another solution is to find these files and put them in the appropriate location.

I followed these directions (I'm running MacOS Big Sur 11.2), but am still having problems, and cannot load any images.

During startup, I see a whole list of bunch of invalid plugin notices like this:

I think this may be due to the mac version, the new versions of the Mac may have some strange problems.Personally, I think it's probably because the newer versions of Mac don't support some of the features in qt4.IThere should be no problem in macOS Catalina. There are some plugins that do have errors, but most of them still work. The plugin Vaa3D_PluginInterface_Demos I did not have problems with. You could try the main page sphere button to get an image from the web, or use data_IO in the plug-in to read.This should result in an error message in the console.If that doesn't work, try following the tutorial to compile.

So far I've managed to compile the main program with qt5.12.1, but since the plugin is written in qt4, it compiles with errors. I have changed a few plugins myself to make it compile with qt5. If you want to use more plugins you will have to change them yourself from the code level. You can have a look at them, they are not officially available at the moment.
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1YlNiqLXpXjCWV3f... Extraction code: r2m4 .Valid for seven days. I hope this will help you.

Hi, sorry, I cannot understand the link above, it is in Chinese, so I am unable to check.

I notice a couple other things today too.
1) I am able to load that web image using the big world button. 
2) I can drag and drop a single image onto vaa3d, and it opens that one image.
3) I cannot load an image using the File->Open menu. 
4) I cannot load an image using the big folder looking button.
5) I cannot import a series using the File->Import->Import General Image Series menu.

I notice none of the plugins have loaded. Do I need them in order to load 4D datasets (x,y,z, and time)?

Hi，I also have some invalid plugin notices ,but not all.It's strange that it doesn't load all the plugins. I'm not quite sure about this at the moment. You can look at the previous post about how to run the plugins on new Mac, not sure if that's your problem.And the current user version does not seem to work withFile->Open menu. But it should not be necessary to use the plug-in to open the image. I failed to compile the plugin with qt5, but I also can load an image using the File->Open menu.