Your information is a bit out of date. This issue has been confirmed to be a problem with mathematica 11. The issue appears with much simpler 3D graphics than the new medical images introduced in version 11, and several people have confirmed that the memory and CPU pressure even on simply machines is well within normal limits.

Granted that the rotation speed will be slow on slower machines, especially those without dedicated GPUs. However, that is not the issue here.

You may have noticed that most people who contribute to this community use their real names. It might be nice if you did so too.

george

macbook pro 2016 without retina - isn't currently offered?

have Intel Iris Graphics 6100

macbook non-retina is offered currently with: Intel HD Graphics 515

either way your right. these cards do not support all OpenGL or other features hardware (i'm unsure if hardware anti-aliasing is one of them or of a different kind). the drivers are supposed to fill in what they dont do (emulate, or HAL sometimes called), but drivers emulating OpenGL version N.M often do need to be updated to work when newly released. intel does release fixed drivers (has done so recently for linux and windows10)

you should contact apple - perhaps an update will be available soon using the normal update features

an example is the Intel Iris Pro 6200. gamers complained of glitches upon first release on Apple. however an update was released that fixed the complaints

I confirm the flickering while rotating anything 3D, for example Graphics3D[Sphere[]]. The flickering goes away by turning antialiasing off. My machine is a MacBook Retina 12-inch, early 2016, latest OS. I hope I don't run into trouble when making presentations with a projector.

I am seeing the same lack of glitches on the 2016 MacBook after moving the slider all the way to the left (No Antialiasing).

I need to periodically make presentations, so I just bought and tested the Apple USB-C to VGA adapter. Regardless of having the Mathematica window located on the external display or the built-in display, the built-in display shows the glitches when rotating the head (slider back to Highest Quality)--though the glitches are not as persistent or noticeable.

I also reported my problems just now with reference to this thread and your CASE id.

I also had a colleague check the same thing on the exact same MacBook (not Pro!!!) and this is reproducable. With that and @Timothy Ewing's result we have not 3 confirmed cases of MacBooks 2016 with that problem.

Best wishes, Marco

For the MacBook Pros that have no problems: Can we specify if they have a dedicated graphics processor.

I have no problem with my 15 inch MacBook Pro that has a dedicated processor (an extra cost option for the 15 inch), whereas the 13 inch MBP, the MacBook Airs, and the current MacBooks all use the integrated Intel graphics.

For iMacs, I just looked at current offerings: the 21.5 inch all have integrated Intel Graphics, and the 27 inch all have dedicated GPUs. I think that this has been the case for some time.

I was a beta tester for version 11, and I think I missed this issue because 1) I wasn't working with 3D graphics at the time of the beta test, and 2) when I was, I used my more powerful computer.

Tried running the code for the new post "On making a 3D globe" (thread) and found that it completely crashes Mathematica on both 2016 MacBook and Mid-2013 11" MacBook Air. Edit: reported to Apple through the crash dialog and will send bug report to Wolfram.

Not a full troubleshooting procedure, but I tried a few variations:

1. Changed "Head" to "Hand". The flickering is much worse and persistent when scrolling the notebook. The entire menubar disappears to black with a little white noise near the apple menu.
2. Deleted the input and output cell. The flickering continued.
3. Tried the "Hand" again. Switching apps and back to Mathematica stops the flickering until the output cell is rotated again--even when scrolling the notebook.
4. According to Activity Monitor, CPU and Memory usage is minimal/moderate while rotating the hands and observing the flickering.

I don't see the issue on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), also running 10.11.6. Rotation is a bit sluggish, though. This computer has a NVIDIA GPU, which I presume is turned on.

On My MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), running the latest beta of macOS Sierra, I see flickering, and then the computer crashed. This computer is using the built-in Intel graphics.

There could also be problems with RAM constraints. The image is a bit large, and my 13 inch MBP has only 8 Gbytes RAM.

So, my guess is that this is a real issue. I'll file a bug report.

Apart from rotating excruciatingly slow, i see no flickering (MacOS el capitan, V11, retina mbp)