Diamond is our outstanding molecular and crystal structurevisualization software. It integrates a multitude of functions, which overcomethe work with crystal structure data - in research and education as well as forpublications and presentations.
Diamond does not only draw nice pictures of molecular and crystalstructures like most of its competitive programs do. It offers an extensive setof functions that let you easily model any arbitrary portion of a crystalstructure from a basic set of structural parameters (cell, space group, atomicpositions).
With its high data capacity, its wide range of functions beginning with thegeneration of molecules reaching up to the construction of rather complicatedinorganic structural frameworks, Diamond is a comprehensive tool forboth molecular and solid state chemists as well as for surface and materialscientists.
Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) and XCrySDen are the two tools I personally work with the most time. They produce nice graphics and can visualize densities etc. VMD also has rendering capabilites by invoking e.g. PovRay.
Therefore I typically directly use the visualisation features from pymatgen, such as pymatgen.vis.structure_vtk, and ASE, for example ase.visualize. Mostly I use them anyway to build up my problem. They have some features for analysing results as well, but those I have not used so far.
OVITO is a great tool for visualising supercells and simulation cells with a large number of atoms. There are plenty of modifications available that facilitate analysis, and it also has a Python interface for those who would like to work with scripts.
It could handle millions of atoms from large-scale MD simulations, although I mostly used it for smaller configurations. AtomEye assumes that the system is under periodic boundary conditions (PBC) in a parallelepiped box. It's possible to shift the system under PBC (shift+mouse drag) - any atom can be moved to the middle of the PBC box. This was a useful feature I haven't seen in other programs.
For visualisation there's also a standalone Java application Jmol, which has a GUI and a more powerful command-line "console". I particularly like it for quickly visualising vibrational modes. However, it lacks tools to construct a simulation cell, unlike some of the other options people have mentioned.
XCrySDen is a crystalline and molecular structure visualization program aiming at the display of isosurfaces and contours, which can be superimposed on crystalline structures and interactively rotated and manipulated. It runs on GNU/Linux. It also possesses some tools for analysis of properties in reciprocal space such as the interactive selection of k-paths in the Brillouin zone for the band-structure plots and visualization of Fermi surfaces.
Crystal Impact Diamond, despite being a commercial product, offers a free demo-version.One can import a structure, adjust its appearance and use screen capturing software for saving the image/animation.
This article informs you about limitations of Diamond running in demonstration mode as compared with Diamond running as full version. This information is not valid for the full version of Diamond.
Changes in structure documents cannot be saved in the original file formats of Diamond versions 3 and 4 (the Diamond Document format, "diamdoc") and the Diamond Structure File format ("DSF"), which has been used by version 2 and 1.x of Diamond.
That means, whenever you call one of the functions that save the current structure document either with the "old" file name (File/Save) or with a new file name (File/Save as...), this will fail. Instead, a message box will remember you of this restriction.
If you close a structure document window - either by closing the window, by using the "Close all" command from the "Window" menu, or by closing the application window of Diamond -, this will be closed immediately, even if the structure document has been changed or is new. That means, the usual prompt ("Save modifications in...?" - Yes/No/Cancel) will not appear!
The crystal visualizer tool is available for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Android devices. The visualizer enables the users to open popular .cif, .xyz, .cub, .mol, etc.format files to visualise crystal as well as molecular structures and isosurfaces. The visualizer is built using a gaming engine (Unity3d) ensuring stellar, never-before seen graphics on any other molecule/crystal visualizer. This makes the app really useful for researchers to prepare illustrations and figures for their research papers, thesis and dissertation. The app lets the users visualize lattice planes, and draw vectors to indicate electric/magnetic fields.
Diamond is a molecular and crystal structure visualization software. It only draws nice pictures of molecular and crystal structures, but also offers an extensive set of functions that let you easily model any arbitrary portion of a crystal structure from a basic set of structural parameters (cell, space group, atomic positions).
However, as I got further into computational material science I got to use many more amazing applications each with its own unique features. In fact, I even developed my own molecule and crystal visualization application (CrysX-3D Viewer) built using the Unity gaming engine that works on PCs and Android smartphones.
IQmol is a free open-source molecular editor and visualization package. It offers a range of features including a molecular editor, surface generation (orbitals and densities) and animations (vibrational modes and reaction pathways).
It has been integrated with the Q-Chem quantum chemistry package and offers an intuitive enviroment to set up, run, and analyse Q-Chem calculations. However, it can also read and display a variety of file formats, including the widely available formatted checkpoint file.
Molden is a software tool that allows the display of molecular density from various Ab Initio and Semi-Empirical packages. This tool is capable of reading all the necessary information from the output files of GAMESS, GAUSSIAN, Mopac/Ampac, and several other programs in the Molden format.
Molden offers several features such as the display of molecular orbitals, electron density, and molecular minus atomic density. It also supports contour plots, 3D grid plots, and a combination of both, with the option to subtract either the spherically averaged atomic density or the oriented ground state atomic density for standard basis sets.
In addition, Molden can write graphics instructions such as postscript, XWindows, VRML, povray, OpenGL, tekronix4014, hpgl, hp2392, and Figure. It can import and display several file formats such as chemx, PDB, mopac/ampac, and many others. Molden also has the capability to animate reaction paths and molecular vibrations.
Moreover, Molden allows the calculation and display of true or Multipole Derived Electrostatic Potential and fitting atomic charges to the Electrostatic Potential calculated on a Connolly surface. The tool features an Ambfor standalone force field program capable of optimizing geometries with combined Amber and GAFF force fields.
Furthermore, Molden has a powerful Z-matrix editor that provides full control over the geometry and allows the creation of molecules from scratch, including polypeptides. It was also submitted to the QCPE (Quantum Chemistry Program Exchange) but its Xwindows version is not up-to-date.
In summary, Molden is an all-in-one software tool that provides numerous features for the display and analysis of molecular structures, making it an essential tool for researchers and scientists working in the field of computational chemistry.
Avogadro2 is a powerful chemical editor and visualization application that also includes a set of reusable software libraries written in C++. With its updated and improved rendering capabilities, Avogadro2 can handle larger chemical structures and simulations produced by computational chemistry codes. It also supports the visualization capabilities of VTK, making complex visualization techniques possible, such as volume rendering and streamlines. Moreover, Avogadro2 is easy to extend using simple Python scripts and provides access to full-blown C++ plugin APIs where more control is required. Overall, Avogadro2 is a flexible and robust solution for tackling molecular simulation and visualization challenges in key areas of materials science, chemistry, and biology.
CYLview is a powerful tool designed to facilitate the analysis and communication of scientific results, particularly for computational chemists. It was specifically created to accelerate the evaluation and analysis of structures, while generating high-quality representations containing all the necessary information for professional publications and presentations. Unlike other programs that have similar functionalities, CYLview was designed to be easy to use and optimized for non-theoretical experimental chemists.
CYLview offers an animation module, which allows the creation of movies that smoothly animates the transition between various orientations of the structure. Measurement labels and distance labels can be added automatically, and the precision of the measurement labels can be changed easily. CYLview also includes a function to rapidly generate Newman projections, which are of utmost importance in the depiction and comparison of structures.
CYLview provides a key aspect of the analysis of computed structures, which is the rapid assessment of the number, nature, and magnitude of the various interactions throughout the molecule. The vdW module allows for the examination of steric contacts and the strength threshold of the contacts. The threshold can be changed dynamically to rapidly evaluate the magnitude of the contacts. CYLview also allows for the rapid evaluation of geometry optimizations and frequency jobs from Gaussian 03 and Gaussian 09 calculations.
In summary, CYLview is a powerful tool that offers a wide range of visual styles and functionalities to accelerate the evaluation and analysis of structures while generating high-quality representations containing all the necessary information for professional publications and presentations. Its user-friendly interface and powerful visual cues make it an ideal tool for non-theoretical experimental chemists who wish to use computational chemistry as a practical tool.
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