Version history

Past program versions are available for download here.

Release 3.8.0 (03-Mar-2023):

  • Dark mode UI support on Linux platform.
  • Load trajectory modifier: Support removal of particles during the course of a simulation trajectory.
  • Added file reader for the new LAMMPS dump grid file format. 
  • Slice modifier: Voxel grid properties are now copied to faces of cross-section mesh (and interpolated property values to mesh vertices).
  • Spatial correlation function modifier: Added support for 2d simulation cells.
  • Wrap at periodic boundaries modifier: Added support for 2d simulation cells.
  • Color legend overlay: Added options for tick marks and rotated title. 
  • Support point-based volumetric grid data (in addition to the classical cell-based voxel grids).
  • Save and restore maximized state of main window across program sessions.
  • Accept .ovito state files in data import function.
  • LAMMPS data reader & writer: Support extended Velocities section for atom styles electron, ellipsoid, and sphere.
  • LAMMPS data writer: Added the option to renumber all particle/bond/angle/dihedral/improper types during export. Avoids problems with 0-based type IDs loaded from GSD files.
  • New option to clip surfaces meshes at open simulation box boundaries (see SurfaceMeshVis.clip_at_domain_boundaries).
  • Cluster analysis modifier: Stop calculation of center of mass and radius of gyration if all masses of particles are zero. 
  • Workaround for UI bug in Qt 6.4 on macOS: Menu bar functions do not follow active window if multiple OVITO windows are open.
  • Multiple pipelines in the same scene no longer supported in OVITO Basic — now requires OVITO Pro. 
  • Pro New advanced programming interface for user-defined Python modifiers.
  • Pro Added file reader for ASE database files.
  • Pro New modifier: Identify FCC planar faults.
  • Pro New modifier: Render LAMMPS regions.
  • Pro Added option to import multiple files of the same kind as separate scene objects in one step (instead of importing them as a trajectory).
  • Pro Spatial binning modifier: Added unity option to easily calculate particle number density. 
  • Pro Accept os.PathLike objects passed to import_file() and export_file() functions.
  • Pro PropertyContainer.create_property(): Accept any data value that broadcastable to shape of property array. 

Release 3.7.12 (16-Dec-2022):

  • GRO file reader: Recognize additional chemical symbols SI, FE, BR.
  • STL file reader: Tolerate leading whitespace on first line.
  • Updated third-party libraries on Windows: Qt 6.4.1, OpenSSL 1.1.1s, ffmpeg 4.2.8, zlib 1.2.23.
  • Fix: Voronoi cavity radius calculation is wrong by a factor of 2.
  • Fix: Function “Make Independent” does not work correctly for surface mesh visual elements in cloned pipelines.  
  • Pro Fix: Python method SurfaceMesh.locate_point() can yield wrong results for coarse, one-sided meshes.

Release 3.7.11 (29-Oct-2022):

  • Added user option to application settings dialog for changing the working directory behavior.  
  • Fixed regression: Slice modifier does not work on voxel grids.
  • Pro Vectorized all query methods of SurfaceMeshTopology class.
  • Pro Provide PyPI package for Python 3.11.
  • Pro Added flat array option to method SurfaceMesh.get_face_vertices().

Release 3.7.10 (09-Oct-2022):

Release 3.7.9 (12-Sep-2022):

  • Voronoi analysis modifier: Added calculation of cavity radius.
  • GSD file importer/exporter: Added support for particle attributes “angmom” and “body”.
  • Fix: Affine Transformation modifier not transforming particles in target-cell mode in rare situations (when called from Python).
  • Fix: File import via drag & drop not working when Vulkan viewport renderer is active.
  • Upgraded Qt cross-platform framework to version 6.3.1.
  • Cluster analysis modifier: Warn user if center of mass cannot be computed due to cluster’s total mass being zero.
  • Pro Upgraded embedded interpreter to Python 3.10.6.
  • Pro Installation of PyPI packages with the --user option in the embedded interpreter is now supported.
  • Pro New Python API for creating SurfaceMesh objects.
  • Pro Improved operation of Python module in Jupyter environments. Interrupting long-running operations is fully supported now.
  • Pro New experimental Jupyter notebook visualization widget (Viewport.create_jupyter_widget).
  • Pro Added Python API ColorLegendOverlay.color_mapping_source.
  • Pro Fix: Segfault during Python statement del ovito.scene.pipelines[:].

Release 3.7.8 (29-Jul-2022):

  • Fix: Program crash when quickly skipping through a trajectory consisting of a series of files loaded via SSH (regression OVITO 3.7.0).
  • Fix: Visual artifacts when rendering cone primitives (3d arrow heads) at small length scales due to numerical precision issue.
  • Pro Added conda packages for Python 3.10.
  • Pro Added conda packages for macOS arm64/M1 platform.
  • Pro Work around a memory leak in some OpenGL graphics driver implementations when the Viewport.render_image() Python function is called repeatedly. 

Release 3.7.7 (06-Jul-2022):

  • Ubuntu 22.04 compatibility – Linux package of OVITO now includes a private copy of OpenSSL 1.1 libraries. 

Release 3.7.6 (23-Jun-2022):

  • PDB file reader: Added support for CP2K trajectory format.
  • LAMMPS dump file reader: Recognize quat{ijkw} and shape{xyz} columns and automatically them to correct particle properties.
  • Fix: Camera FOV parameter not animatable when rendering a movie.
  • Fix: Segfault when loading .ovito state files written by OVITO 3.3 or older containing a Python script.
  • Fix: Grain segmentation algorithm never terminates for particular inputs.
  • PyPI package for Linux: disabled built-in SSH client to improve compatibility with Ubuntu 22.04, which doesn’t provide OpenSSL 1.1 libraries anymore.
  • Pro New Python class SurfaceMeshTopology, which provides script access to the face connectivity information of surface meshes.
  • Pro Conda channel now provides additional variants of the ovito package (built against tbb v2020 and v2021), which avoids dependency conflicts with certain third-party packages when installing them in the same environment.

Release 3.7.5 (28-May-2022):

  • Smooth trajectory modifier now supports varying number of particles.
  • SSH client: Try password first before keyboard-interactive authentication for successful handshaking with some SSH servers.
  • Performance improvements to OpenGL high-quality sphere rendering code
  • Bug fix: Data inspector shows a 3rd text label in bar charts with 2 bars.
  • Bug fix: Sporadic program crashes when importing CA files.
  • Pro DataCollection.attributes dictionary can now store arbitrary Python objects.
  • Pro New Python method Particles.remap_indices().
  • Pro New Python method SurfaceMesh.to_triangle_mesh().
  • Pro Bumped maximum neighbor limit of NearestNeighborFinder to 64.
  • Pro Dropped support for Python 3.6, which has reached its end-of-life date.

Release 3.7.4 (18-Apr-2022):

Release 3.7.3 (29-Mar-2022):

  • DXA modifier now picks up partitioning established by Grain Segmentation modifier in the upstream pipeline, see discussion in the forum.
  • Fix: XYZ file column mapping is reset when using “Pick new file” function.
  • Fix: App closes when using the “Pick new file” function under Linux (issue #216).
  • Fix: Segfault when deleting a disabled modifier from a branched pipeline.
  • Fix: Construct surface mesh modifier sometimes produces incorrect cap polygons if the alpha-shape complex contains degenerate elements (issue #217).
  • Regression: Progress bar not updated correctly during execution of Construct Surface Mesh and DXA modifiers.
  • Regression: Program does not exit if --help command line option is used. 
  • Pro Added user documentation for Python-based modifiers Calculate Local Entropy and Shrink-wrap Simulation Box.
  • Pro Added .pyi stub files to ovito Python package to support auto-completions and mouse-over documentation in Python IDEs. 
  • Pro CutoffNeighborFinder now accepts non-periodic simulation cells that are degenerate.
  • Pro Fix: DataTable.xy() method generates wrong x-coords array if data table interval doesn’t start at 0.

Release 3.7.2 (03-Mar-2022):

  • Improved render output window with image zoom function.
  • Fix: Particle type colors not initialised correctly if imported LAMMPS dump file contains both ‘type’ and ‘element’ columns (issue #193).
  • Pro macOS: Fixed PySide6 loading error due to wrong rpath information when importing PyPI ovito package.
  • Pro Linux: Fixed sqlite3 Python package included in the embedded Python interpreter of OVITO Pro. 

Release 3.7.1 (26-Feb-2022):

  • Fixed regression: Segfault when loading session state file containing a viewport camera object. 
  • Pro New Python function NearestNeighborFinder.find_all().
  • Pro PropertyContainer classes support removing properties with the del statement.
  • Pro Inform user if insufficient file access permissions let license activation fail.

Release 3.7.0 (15-Feb-2022):

  • Visual element and particle type settings can now be preserved when picking a new input simulation file in the External File panel.
  • Support for HTML formatted text in viewport layers Text Label, Color Legend, and Coordinate Tripod. 
  • Improved color quality of animated GIFs produced by OVITO
  • Added dark mode UI support on macOS.
  • Availability of native arm64/M1 builds of OVITO Basic, OVITO Pro and the OVITO Python package for Apple Silicon machines. 
  • Ported OVITO code base from C++14 to C++17 language standard.
  • Switched from old Qt 5.x to version 6.2 of the Qt cross-platform C++ framework and, correspondingly, from PySide2 to PySide6. (Exception: Packages for Anaconda, where dependencies Qt6/PySide6 are not yet available).
  • Completely reworked and modernized the internal asynchronous task system and the scene rendering framework of OVITO.
  • New standard bond property “Width”, which allows controlling the diameter of bond cylinders on a per-bond basis. 
  • Added detailed documentation for some of the file readers of OVITO. See the table of supported formats.
  • LAMMPS data file reader & writer: Added preliminary support for type labels, which will be supported by a future version of LAMMPS. 
  • LAMMPS dump file reader: Map columns c_diameter[...] to particle property Aspherical Shape and perform division by 2.
  • GSD file reader & writer: Added support for angles/dihedrals/impropers.
  • User can now rename individual structure types in the UI of structure identification modifiers.
  • Implemented new OpenGL rendering technique Weighted Blended Order-Independent Transparency, providing an alternative to the classical painter’s algorithm. Can be activated in the app settings dialog and gives better results if there’s a mix of several different object types (e.g. particles and surfaces) that are all semi-transparent.
  • Detect if the triangle mesh is not closed when loading a custom particle shape. Automatically disable back-face culling for the particle type in this case.
  • CA file reader: Compute dislocation line statistics for re-imported datasets the same way the DXA modifier does. 
  • Fix: Particles visual element does not use uniform scaling factor when rendering some non-spherical particle shapes.

Release 3.6.0 (19-Nov-2021):

  • Vectors, Surface Mesh, Voxel Grid, Trajectory Lines visual elements: Added direct color mapping option as a faster alternative to the Color Coding modifier.  
  • Bonds visual element: Added explicit control of the coloring mode. 
  • Made number and layout of interactive viewports configurable by the user.
  • Visibility of pipelines can be controlled on a per-viewport basis.
  • Coordination Polyhedra modifier now makes particle properties available for the color coding as mesh region properties and mesh vertex properties.
  • Generate Trajectory Lines modifier: New capability to transfer time-dependent particle properties to the trajectory lines.
  • Load Trajectory modifier: Support non-contiguous atom IDs in LAMMPS bond dump files
  • Added file reader for binary STL files.
  • New mechanism for customizing the initial program session state.
  • Raised limit on the number of FFT bins in Spatial Correlation Modifier to support finer grid resolutions.
  • Fix: PTM modifier may crash if graphene/diamond are the only enabled structure types.
  • Fix: Traced trajectory lines may be rendered in wrong colors.
  • Took out code that transmits random installation ID to web server.
  • OpenSSL shared libraries are no longer shipped with OVITO for Linux to avoid compatibility issues on some Linux distributions.
  • Pro Added capability to render multi-viewport layouts in one step.
  • Pro Python code generator has been extended to generate code for all visual elements and for reenacting manual changes made by the user to data objects (e.g. particle type names, color, radii).
  • Pro Added the input_format keyword parameter to the import_file() Python function for specifying the file format explicitly.
  • Pro Upgraded OSPRay to version 2.7.1.
  • Pro Renamed Viewport.create_widget() method and made it work in all distributions of the ovito Python module.
  • Pro Added experimental Viewport.create_jupyter_widget() method for embedding OVITO viewports in Jupyter notebooks (see demo binder).
  • Pro Support for site-wide software licenses.
  • Pro Fix: Bounding box clipping artifact when rendering rotated superquadrics particles with OSPRay or Tachyon renderers.
  • Pro Fix: Warning “This plugin does not support createPlatformOpenGLContext!” when running in headless mode on Linux machines.

Release 3.5.4 (31-Jul-2021):

  • LAMMPS data file reader and writer now support all LAMMPS atom styles, including the hybrid style.
  • Fix: Construct surface mesh with region identification fails or never completes for some inputs.
  • Pro Fix: Tachyon renderer crashes when triangle mesh contains a degenerate vertex normal.

Release 3.5.3 (30-Jun-2021):

  • Added two tutorials to the documentation.
  • Voxel grid visual element now supports mouse-over data display in the status bar. 
  • Added invert function to Manual selection modifier.
  • Warn user if OVITO Python module was installed via pip command in an Anaconda Python interpreter. Use conda install instead!
  • Fix: Configure Trajectory Playback dialog shows no contents.
  • Fix: Neighbor finder facilities do not ignore PBC flag along third dimension in 2D mode.

Release 3.5.2 (26-May-2021):

  • Affine Transformation modifier now allows entering the translation vector in reduced cell coordinates.
  • Load Trajectory modifier can now import ReaxFF bond information files written by the LAMMPS fix reax/c/bonds command.
  • GSD file reader: Fill particle property array with default values if a chunk is not present in current frame (issue #206)
  • Pro Fix: Invisible simulation cell edges when rendering image with orthographic projection with OSPRay

Release 3.5.1 (18-May-2021):

  • The Coordination Analysis modifier has gained an option ‘Only selected particles‘, which restricts RDF calculation to a subset of particles.
  • The ‘Generate neighbor bonds‘ option of the Voronoi Analysis modifier is now able to deal with small periodic simulation cells.
  • Fix: Wireframe line rendering issue in perspective viewports.
  • Pro The Slice modifier now accepts (hkl) Miller indices as input for defining the plane orientation. The plane position can be specified in terms of the interplanar spacing.
  • Pro OVITO Pro for Linux now ships with a current Python 3.9.5 interpreter.
  • Pro Fix: PropertyContainer.create_property() method cannot create user-defined property of data type int64.

Release 3.5.0 (02-May-2021):

  • Pipeline editor supports drag-and-drop operations, which allow easy rearranging of modifiers with the mouse.
  • Modifiers can be grouped in the pipeline editor to collapse complex sequences of modifiers into a single list entry.
  • Color Legend viewport layer can render a legend for typed particle properties, showing the discrete colors representing the defined particle types. 
  • New implementation of the OpenGL viewport renderer. Provides better compatibility with GPU hardware, older OpenGL drivers, and virtual machine environments. OVITO now works on systems with only OpenGL 2.1 support (previous OVITO version required OpenGL 3.2).
  • New viewport renderer based on the Vulkan graphic hardware interface as an alternative option to the OpenGL renderer. Can be activated in the application settings dialog (not available on macOS). Supports rendering in head-less mode on HPC nodes with GPU hardware. 
  • New pipeline selector widget in the toolbar of OVITO, which lets you manage the data pipelines in the current scene and add new pipelines.
  • Extended the Create Bonds modifier. A new parameter-free mode allows creating bonds based on van der Waals radii of the atoms.
  • Performance improvement: Create Bonds modifier can now make use of multiple processor cores. 
  • Affine Transformation modifier can now transform triangle meshes (imported from STL, OBJ, VTK files).
  • Several file format readers now provide the option to generate interatomic bonds during data import (relieves from having to apply the Create Bonds modifier).
  • Some file format readers provide a new option to dynamically recenter the simulation cell on the coordinate origin. Useful for visualizing trajectories with varying cell shape.
  • Gromacs, PDB, and mmCIF file readers now import atom names and residue names as particle properties.
  • Internal chemical database of OVITO has been extended to include all elements and mass information, which will be assigned to particle types during file import.
  • The Particles visual element provides a new parameter controlling the uniform scaling of atom radii. Useful for quickly producing a typical “balls-and-sticks” representation of a molecular structure. 
  • A bonds-only visualization of a molecular structure (with particles turned off) now adds spheres at the nodal points of the bond network to yield a typical “stick” representation.  
  • XYZ file reader now supports the exyz format variant of OpenBabel.
  • Fix: CFG file reader loosing particle type settings during file reload.
  • Fix: Segfault when loading certain NetCDF files with >1M particles.
  • Fix: Error when deleting some regions of a surface mesh structure.
  • Fix: Slow performance of Particles visual element when some particle types use mesh-based shapes.
  • Rearranged the Render Settings panel. The viewport preview mode can now be activated from here.
  • Extended the Python API to support construction of VoxelGrid objects from scripts. 
  • OVITO User Manual uses a new layout theme and supports full-text search.
  • Environment variable OVITO_LOG_FILE allows redirecting terminal output of OVITO to a text file (useful on Windows platform, where console output is otherwise inaccessible).
  • Pro New modifier Color By Type for recoloring particles based on one of their typed properties, e.g. discrete Residue Type or Atom Name property.
  • Pro New pipeline data source type Python script. Run a user-defined Python function that builds or synthesizes an input DataCollection for a pipeline (instead of loading a structure from disk). Can also be used to import data formats into OVITO which are not directly supported by the software.
  • Pro LAMMPS integration: The new data pipeline source type LAMMPS script allows editing and executing LAMMPS input scripts within OVITO to generate a dataset using LAMMPS commands. Useful for prototyping LAMMPS simulation setups with immediate visual feedback in OVITO.
  • Pro Updated OSPRay rendering library to version 2.5.0, offering a better denoising filter.
  • Pro Spatial Binning modifier can now process vector particle properties in addition to scalar properties.
  • Pro Python API: Added the method CutoffNeighborFinder.find_at() for enumerating all particles around an arbitrary spatial position.
  • Pro Python code generator: Emit valid code for visualization setups including a PythonViewportLayer.
  • Pro Python code generator: Emit call to generate() method of Generate Trajectory Lines modifier.
  • Pro Fix: Made auto-crop function work for pictures rendered with OSPRay and denoising filter enabled.
  • Pro Fix: Python viewport layer does not get called with current values of user-defined parameters.

Release 3.4.4 (12-Mar-21):

  • Fix: Number of data columns not correctly detected for XYZ files with 5 atoms or less.
  • Fix: Program crash when playing back animation with less than 1 frame per second in interactive viewports.
  • Fix: Simulation cell not visible in interactive viewports on some computer systems (issue #203).
  • Fix: CIF file reader not automatically recognizing files written by Open Babel (issue #204).
  • Pro Fix: OSPRay not rendering arrow glyphs correctly. 

Release 3.4.3 (25-Feb-21):

  • Added text outline option to Coordinate Tripod viewport layer.
  • Fixed UI issue: Status bar resizing due to invalid unicode character in text string.
  • Corrected camera orientation of “Bottom” viewport view type when rotation constraint is turned on.
  • Improved automatic detection of PDB file format.
  • Pro It’s now okay to assign a simple string to the ComputePropertyModifier.expressions field. 

Release 3.4.2 (15-Feb-21):

  • Long text strings displayed in the status bar of OVITO now get broken into two lines in order to show more property values in the available space.
  • Bug fix: Status bar doesn’t display latest set of particle properties while positioning the mouse cursor over a particle. This fix corrects a regression introduced with OVITO 3.4.0.
  • Fixed a limitation of the PTM modifier not identifying diamond and graphene structures in small periodic simulation cells.

Release 3.4.1 (03-Feb-21):

  • Fixed runtime linker error when importing ovito Python module installed via pip on Linux.
  • Pro Spatial binning modifier can now operate on vectorial particle properties.

Release 3.4.0 (28-Jan-21):

  • Backward incompatible .ovito state file format change: Program sessions saved with OVITO 3.4 or later cannot be opened in previous versions!   
  • Extensive redesign of OVITO’s internal C++ data object model to make it thread-safe. User experience and Python API remain largely unaffected.
  • State files (.ovito) now store relative paths to imported data files, enabling the relocation of an entire directory tree containing the state file and the data file without breaking the reference.
  • Rewrite of the OpenGL rendering code, making use of geometry shaders on a wider range of hardware. OVITO now requires OpenGL 3.0 or higher (previous releases required OpenGL 2.1).
  • Color Coding modifier: Added an auto-adjust option, which dynamically adjusts the min/max interval to the current range of input values.
  • File importers reading the Velocity vector particle property automatically generate the Velocity Magnitude particle property too.
  • OVITO can now visualize particles with superellipsoid shapes, which are controlled by the Superquadric Roundness particle property. 
  • Preliminary file reader support for ParaView VTP, VTI, VTM and PVD formats, as written by the Aspherix DEM simulation code.
  • Pro OVITO Pro gives the user the option to edit Python scripts in an external editor application or IDE (e.g. Visual Studio Code). Changes the user makes to the script code in the external editor are automatically loaded back into OVITO Pro.
  • Pro The Python script modifier displays the current working directory and lets the user control it if necessary.
  • Pro Python-based viewport layers now support user-defined  parameters passed to the render() function.
  • Pro OSPRay and Tachyon renderers can now render polyhedral meshes with highlighted edges (wireframe overlay).
  • Pro New Python method CutoffNeighborFinder.find_at(). 

Release 3.3.5 (12-Dec-20):

  • Extended the Smooth Trajectory modifier to interpolate/average all scalar and continuous particle properties. 
  • Fixed handling of stacking faults of arbitrary thickness in grain segmentation algorithm.
  • Pro Fixed shading issue for ellipsoidal particles in OSPRay renderer.
  • Pro Fixed z-clipping issue in OSPRay and Tachyon renderers for viewports with parallel projections.

Release 3.3.4 (27-Nov-20):

  • Another tweak to the PTM algorithm to fix a regression, which let the PTM modifier fail to correctly identify some BCC atoms.

Release 3.3.3 (23-Nov-20):

Release 3.3.2 (12-Nov-20):

  • Included shared library libxcb-xinerama.so in binary package for Linux, which may not be present on some systems by default.

Release 3.3.1 (13-Oct-20):

  • Grain segmentation modifier: Fixed a bug in the handling of stacking faults.
  • Pro Support license option that allows running the GUI on arbitrary nodes of a computing cluster.

Release 3.3.0 (07-Oct-20):

  • New option in application settings dialog: Sort list of available modifiers by name instead of category.
  • Data plot window now support mouse interaction (zooming/panning), allowing you to take a closer look at the displayed graph.
  • Create isosurface modifier: Iso-value can now be set with the mouse by clicking into the histogram plot.
  • Create isosurface modifier: New option ‘Transfer field values to surface’ for mapping the all voxel grid properties to the isosurface, which can subsequently be used to locally color the generated surface according to some secondary field quantity.
  • Slice modifier: Now supports slicing of voxel grids to extract planar cross-sections.
  • Added a quick search field for quickly accessing modifiers and other program commands in the GUI.
  • The file selection dialog now allows importing multiple files at once. In particular, combinations of topology and trajectory files can now be opened in one step, with OVITO inserting the Load Trajectory modifier automatically.
  • Added a file reader for the Gromacs GRO and XTC file formats.
  • Added option ‘Ignore particle identifiers’ to LAMMPS data file exporter, which will reassign a contiguous range of identifiers to the exported atoms.
  • New implementation of the PDB file reader based on the third-party Gemmi library, providing better compatibility with a wide range of files.
  • Expression selection modifier: Expressions for selecting bonds can now reference properties of the two connected particles.
  • Viewport camera can now be controlled using arrow keys. Use shift key for panning. 
  • OVITO is now based on Qt 5.15.1, fixing some UI issues on high-DPI screens under Windows.
  • Pro New modifier: Time series – a conventient tool for plotting the time evolution of global simulation attributes in OVITO.
  • Pro Time averaging modifier: Support multiple input quantities to be averaged simultaneously. 
  • Pro Spatial binning modifier: The output VoxelGrid object now has the identifier 'binning' instead of 'binning[]'. Note that this represents a breaking change to existing Python scripts employing the SpatialBinningModifier class.
  • Pro Bug fix: Python code generator includes 'LAMMPSAtomStyle.' prefix in import_file() calls.

Release 3.2.1 (28-Aug-20):

  • Load Trajectory modifier: Support trajectory datasets containing more particles than the topology dataset.
  • LAMMPS dump file reader: Support files containing both type and element data columns (issue #193).
  • OVITO for Windows: Fixed UI layout on high-DPI screens.
  • Upgraded third-party software components: Qt 5.15, Python 3.8.5, NetCDF 4.7.4, Libssh 0.9.4, OSPRay 2.2.0.
  • Pro OSPRay: Applied patch to fix a memory leak (issue #196).

Release 3.2.0 (10-Aug-20):

Release 3.1.3 (30-Jul-20):

  • PTM modifier: Fixed identification of chemically ordered binary structures, which got broken in a recent update
  • PDB file format reader: Support for datasets with more than 9,999 atoms (see merge request)

Release 3.1.2 (13-Jul-20):

Release 3.1.1 (21-Jun-20):

  • Bug fix: LAMMPS data file reader fails to correctly read ‘Masses‘ file section with irregularly ordered atom types
  • Pro Time averaging modifier: Check that x-values of data points are constant when averaging a data table

Release 3.1.0 (14-Jun-20):

Release 3.0.1 (05-Jun-20):

  • Bug fix: Adjusted internal parameter of Construct Surface Mesh modifier to avoid sporadic error “Adjacent cell face not found” for periodic systems.
  • Enhancement: LAMMPS dump file reader can now parse “diameter” file column as Radius particle property, automatically performing division by 2.

Release 3.0.0 (30-May-20):

  • dev816 Smooth Trajectory modifier interpolates particle orientations in addition to particle positions.  
  • dev815 Added capability to Construct Surface Mesh modifier to identify pores/voids and individually compute their volumes and surface areas.  
  • dev808 Extended the OSPRay renderer with a sky & sun light source. 
  • dev806 Integrated copy protection into OVITO Pro builds.
  • dev793 Introduced OVITO_THREAD_COUNT environment variable for controlling the number of CPU cores used by OVITO.
  • dev792 Added old VASP 4.x file format to POSCAR reader (in order to support files written by ASE).
  • dev791 Added user option to LAMMPS data writer for omitting the “Masses” file section.
  • dev789 OVITO can now read/write extended topology information from/to LAMMPS data files: angles/dihedrals/impropers.
  • dev786 Bug fix: Output of  Displacements/Atomic Strain/Wigner-Seitz modifiers can be all zeros in relative offset mode (dev679 regression).
  • dev785 Eliminated bottlenecks in GUI, which slowed down animation playback of long trajectories (>100k frames).
  • dev781 Correct handling of LAMMPS dump files with dual data columns (issue #193).
  • dev781 Updated OSPRay renderer to version 2.1.0 and integrated OSPRay plugin into Anaconda build of OVITO.
  • dev781 Bug fix: Color Coding modifier does not list available bond properties.
  • dev766 Added HTTP protocol support. OVITO can now import data files stored on a web server.
  • dev765 OVITO is now also available as an Anaconda package on Windows.
  • dev765 Improvements to the Adjust View dialog, which now allows interacting with the viewports while being open.
  • dev760 Bug fix: Installing a third-party extension module in ovitos fails on macOS due to security restrictions (issue #191).
  • dev760 Bug fix: Checkbox “File contains multiple timesteps” in GUI does not reflect correct state of file reader.
  • dev752 Integrated PM Larsen’s scheme of calculating the centrosymmetry parameter using minimum-weight matching.
  • dev750 New crop option in Viewport.render_image() Python function. 
  • dev747 Windows installer is now digitally signed to be compatible with Microsoft Authenticode.
  • dev747 The embedded Python interpreter ovitos now ignores PYTHONPATH environment variable and user package directories (issue #189).
  • dev747 Fixed LAMMPS data file export for simulation cells aligned along negative coordinate axes (issue #188).
  • dev743 New algorithm type in Common Neighbor Analysis modifier: Interval CNA
  • dev734 Bug fix: Crash during animation frame change when using DXA modifier.
  • dev733 New “Denoising filter” option in OSPRay renderer, which greatly improves the visual quality of rendered images.
  • dev733 New “Every Nth frame” option in animation settings dialog.
  • dev733 Combined bin_count_{xyz} parameter fields of SpatialBinningModifier class into single bin_count field.
  • dev733 GSD file reader: Added support for the SphereUnion particle shape specification (see here).
  • dev733 Fix of UI bug: Data inspector panel not opening correctly in some situations.
  • OVITO now available as a Conda package for Linux and macOS.
  • dev712 Extended the Viewport.zoom_all() Python function.
  • dev687 Fixed broken (since dev679) OVITO program package for Windows, which crashed when inserting  modifiers into the pipeline.
  • dev682 Bug fix: Pipeline stuck in infinite update loop when setting fractional playback rate for trajectory (issue #181)
  • dev681 Added Python function ovito.enable_logging(), which lets OVITO print activity information to the terminal during long-running operations. 
  • dev679 New implementation of OVITO’s asynchronous task framework and pipeline execution/caching system.
  • dev679 New modifier: Time averaging
  • dev679 New modifier: Smooth trajectory
  • dev679 New option to load all frames of the trajectory into memory.
  • dev679 Modifiers, viewport layers, and pipelines can now be given user-defined names in the pipeline editor.
  • dev679 Data tables can now be created from Python, e.g. to have custom analysis modifiers that generate data plots. 
  • dev679 Simplified usage of the Unwrap trajectories modifier, which now scans the input trajectory automatically in the background.
  • dev679 Changed default color scheme for unnamed particle types.
  • dev679 Updating the trajectory from the external file will automatically jump to the end of the trajectory.
  • dev653 Fixed ImportError in PyPI package on macOS (see this discussion).
  • dev652 Support for version 2.0 of the GSD file format (issue #176).
  • dev650 Fixed regression #175 in Expression Selection modifier, which was sporadically crashing since build dev476. 
  • dev648 Now offering two separate program editions: OVITO Basic and OVITO Pro.
  • dev644 Added file reader for the oxDNA file format and a specialised visual element for nucleotides.
  • dev636 Removed the POV-Ray rendering engine (POV-Ray scene file export is still available).
  • dev628 Renamed DataSeries to DataTable throughout the scripting API, user interface and documentation.
  • dev626 Enhancements to the Cluster Analysis modifier: calculation of cluster centers of mass and unwrapping of particle coordinates. 
  • dev622 Python interface: Introduced the Viewport::underlays stack. Redesigned the Viewport Layers command panel tab.
  • dev612 Voronoi Analysis modifier provides new option to visualise the computed Voronoi cells.
  • dev608 Workaround for video encoding issue resulting in invalid MP4/MOV files for frame rates 2/4/8/16 fps.
  • dev605 Updated Qt libraries to version 5.12.6.
  • dev604 The Color Coding and the Assign Color modifier can now operate on surface meshes.
  • dev603 Bug fix: Segfault in Combine Datasets modifier second first dataset contains bonds but first doesn’t (issue #173).
  • dev601 Bug fix: Segfault when accessing a mutable sub-object field (e.g. Particles.bonds_) whose value is None (issue #172).
  • dev598 Construct Surface Mesh modifier: New option to transfer particle properties to generated surface mesh.
  • dev597 Replaced video encoding component Libav with FFmpeg, bringing high-quality animated GIF rendering.
  • dev593 Fixed issue that prevented relative paths to external data files in a .ovito state file to get updated when files are moved.
  • Standalone Python package with the ovito module now available at https://pypi.org/project/ovito/.
  • dev590 Replaced PyQt5 with PySide2 Python module.
  • dev581 Fixed loading of multi-frame PDB files.
  • dev575 XYZ file exporter now includes cell origin in header line if non-zero.
  • dev561 New ‘Use mesh color’ option for particle types, which renders particles having a user-defined shape with the original mesh colors.
  • dev560 Added keyboard shortcut for the New Program Window function.
  • dev558 Added the SimulationCell.delta_vector() and Particles.delta_vector() methods for calculating the vector connecting two particles.
  • dev555 Added the Particles.create_particle() and Bonds.create_bond() Python methods for adding new particles and bonds to a system.
  • dev551 Let the LAMMPS data file parser accept additional spaces between header keywords.
  • dev542 Included missing Tcl/Tk support files of Python interpreter in the Windows installation package.
  • dev539 Bug Fix: Affine Transformation modifier does not transform dislocation lines.
  • dev537 New option in the Slice modifier to visualize the plane in rendered images.
  • dev533 Added a file writer for the GSD/HOOMD file format.
  • dev530 Added a visualization element for voxel grids computed by the Spatial Binning modifier or imported charge density fields.
  • dev526 Implemented the QuickSurf algorithm in the Construct Surface Mesh modifier as an alternative surface generation algorithm.
  • dev520 Added a file reader for the CIF format (Crystallographic Information File).
  • dev519 Extended sections on data manipulation and user-defined modifier functions in the Python documentation.
  • dev505 GSD file reader reads particle shape definitions (ellipsoids, polygons, convex polyhedra, general 3d meshes).
  • dev504 Create Bonds modifier remembers if the user explicitly re-enables the display of an unusually large number of bonds.
  • dev498 GSD file reader supports user-defined per-particle, per-bond and global data chunks.
  • dev496 Upgraded build environment to Qt release 5.12.5.
  • dev494 Settings for animation FPS and rendering resolution are retained across program session.
  • dev493 Added graphics export function for data series plots.
  • dev492 Display of bonds now takes into account particle radii when calculating the length of half-bond cylinders.
  • dev491 Documented the ‘Clone pipeline‘ function in the user manual.
  • dev490 Use Ctrl/Command key modifiers to zoom all viewports to scene extents at once.
  • dev489 Renamed the ‘Correlation function‘ modifier to ‘Spatial correlation function‘ modifier.
  • dev486 Replaced calls to FFTW library with more lightweight KISS FFT library.
  • dev485 CASTEP .md file reader: Automatic conversion from Bohr to Angstrom units.
  • dev485 Reimplemented how animation timeline is adjusted to accommodate loaded trajectories; redesign of the animation settings dialog.
  • dev481 Bug fix: Memory footprint continuously increases during animation rendering.
  • dev480 Fixed bug in CASTEP MD file reader not recognizing ‘<– hv’ lines.
  • dev475 New axis style option in coordinate tripod viewport overlay.
  • dev475 Fix for ovitos.exe error “unable to find Qt5Core.dll on PATH” on Windows.
  • dev475 New file exporter for VTK voxel grid files. Allows to export results of Spatial Binning modifier. 
  • dev475 Set up automatic mapping to particle properties for 4-column XYZ files. 
  • dev469 New ‘Constrain Rotation’ option in the viewport context menu to turn on/off camera alignment with z-axis.
  • dev469 Maximized state of active viewport is kept across program sessions.
  • dev469 Bug fix: ‘Save as defaults’ function in particle type editor not working for numeric particle types (issue #157)
  • Bug fix: export_file() Python function always performs pipeline evaluation at frame 0.
  • Added the Viewport.create_widget() Python method, which allows embedding an OVITO viewport into a PyQt5 GUI.
  • Bug fix: LAMMPS data exporter not writing ‘dipole’ atom style files correctly.
  • Extended LAMMPS data file reader to support a wider range of atom styles, including ‘hybrid’.
  • Extended the GSD file reader to parse the periodic image information, which can be used by the Unwrap Trajectories modifier to unfold particle positions.
  • Added a file reader for ParaDiS data files containing discrete dislocation lines.
  • The Unwrap Trajectories modifier can now undo the cell flipping performed by LAMMPS to keep the tilt factors within certain limits.
  • New modifier: Chill+ algorithm for identifying water structures. 
  • Added support for user-defined particle shapes.
  • Added file reader for the OBJ and STL formats, which store triangle meshes. 
  • Extended the Construct Surface Mesh modifier to identify disconnected regions of the filled volume.
  • Added the Viewport.camera_up parameter, which gives control over the orientation of the vertical axis in rendered images.
  • New implementation of the surface mesh data structure, now supporting assignment of arbitrary properties to the vertices, faces and spatial regions enclosed by surface mesh.
  • OSPRay renderering engine is now available in Windows builds of Ovito.
  • Added the DataCollection.apply() Python method, which allows to directly apply a built-in modifier to a dataset.
  • Updated the Gaussian Cube file reader to auto-detect Bohr/Angstrom units and support files containing multiple field values.
  • Extended PDB file reader to support multi-frame trajectory files.
  • Added option to POSCAR file writer for outputting atomic positions and velocities in reduced cell coordinates.
  • Added new option to Construct Surface Mesh modifier that allows selecting all atoms on the constructed surface.
  • Extended the Python interface of the Color Coding modifier to simply definition of custom color gradients.
  • The Wigner-Seitz modifier now supports loading varying reference configurations, which depend on the current timestep.
  • Improved appearance of axis tripod viewport overlay when looking head-on to an axis (issue #88)
  • Added the new Unwrap trajectories modifier.
  • Bug fix: XYZ files with varying numbers of named atom types (issue #137)
  • Bug fix: Globbing algorithm did not recognize file sequences such as ‘file-0.001’, ‘file-0.0001’, etc. correctly.
  • Create Bonds modifier now defines a new bond type and assigns it to all newly created bonds
  • Reimplemented the Generate Trajectory Lines modifier, now supporting systems with varying number of particles. Unwrapped trajectory lines can now optionally be displayed in wrapped form.
  • Updated version of the PTM modifier, which now supports OVITO standard reference orientations for computing crystal orientations. See merge request.  
  • Built-in SSH client now supports servers that use two-factor authentication and keyboard-interactive authentication.
  • Basic support for Quantum Espresso data file format.
  • Added file reader for GALAMOST file format.
  • Added an ‘enabled’ property to viewport overlay Python class, which allows users to temporarily turn off individual overlays.
  • Changed the signature of user-defined modifier functions. Instead of separate input and output data collections, a user-defined modifier function now takes just a single data collection, which can be modified in-place by the function. A fallback to the old function signature is implemented to maintain backward compatibility.  
  • Per-type masses are now read from LAMMPS data files.
  • Bug fix: Elastic Strain Calculation modifier yields off-diagonal elements of atomic Green-Lagrangian strain tensor with wrong sign.
  • Fixed UI issue #119.
  • Voronoi analysis modifier now dynamically adjusts the number of output columns of the Voronoi Index property to the maximum face order.
  • Renamed the “Bond-Angle Analysis” modifier to “Ackland-Jones Analysis” modifier.
  • Renamed the “Bin & Reduce” modifier to “Spatial Binning” modifier.
  • Extended the Spatial Binning modifier to support 3d grids.
  • Fixed bug in the marching cubes algorithm used by the Create Isosurface modifier, which sometimes let the surface construction fail with an error message.
  • Added file reader for the DL_POLY format.
  • Added calculation of partial (element-wise) RDFs to the Coordination Analysis modifier.
  • Generalized the Compute Property modifier, which can now compute bond properties too. Furthermore, neighbor terms can now reference properties of the central particle as well. 
  • Added computation of height-difference correlation function to Correlation Function modifier.
  • Removed the Compute Bond Lengths modifier from the program. The extended Compute Property modifier provides a similar functionality.
  • Lifted 1 billion atom limit of the LAMMPS, CFG and IMD file parsers.
  • Fixed program crash at program startup due to unhandled exception in case the OpenGL initialization fails.
  • Generalized the Manual Selection modifier, which now supports selecting bonds too.
  • Bug fix: ‘Move plane to simulation box center’ function of Slice modifier not calculating the distance value correctly for non-unit normal vectors 
  • Implemented correct 2D shear and volumetric strain calculation in Atomic Strain modifier for two-dimensional system.
  • Added the ‘Transparency‘ bond property and partial support for rendering semi-transparent bonds.
  • Added a ‘Color particles by type‘ option to structure identification modifiers such as CNA and PTM, providing the option to preserve the current colors of particles. 
  • Added a ‘Sort particles by ID‘ option to some file readers, automatically sorting the imported particles w.r.t. unique identifiers to obtain a stable ordering.
  • Bug fix: Correlation function modifier crashes when simulation cell is smaller than selected FFT grid spacing (issue #106).
  • Bug fix: Atomic Strain modifier ignores turning off the ‘Select invalid particles‘ user option.
  • File sequence globbing now works for hidden files (issue #98)
  • Modifiers no longer overwrite global attributes with the same name produced by upstream modifiers in the pipeline. Instead, new unique attribute names are generated whenever needed.
  • Renamed the ovito.DataSet Python class to Scene.
  • The VASP file reader can now handle more variants of XDATCAR files, e.g. those with varying cell size
  • Animation playback direction can be reversed using the Shift keyboard modifier
  • New SSH client for loading files from remote hosts, which supports public key authentication and a wider range of key exchange methods.
  • Bug fix: File descriptors do not get closed when importing new files due to bug in GSD file I/O layer.
  • The Expression Selection modifier now supports selection of other kinds of elements, for example bonds, in addition to particles.
  • The Polyhedral Template Matching (PTM) function has been extended and can now identify diamond structures.
  • The Generate Trajectory Lines utility has been replaced with the new Generate Trajectory Lines modifier.
  • Viewport overlays now provide a background option, putting them behind the three-dimensional scene.
  • OVITO now reads Gaussian Cube files (atoms and voxel grid data). 
  • The new Data Inspector panel has been introduced. It replaces the old Inspect Particles and Inspect Dislocations utilities.
  • “Display objects” are now called “visual elements” within OVITO.
  • Replaced the Viewport.render() Python method with the new Viewport.render_image() and Viewport.render_anim() methods. The RenderSettings and the AnimationSettings classes have been removed from the Python interface.
  • The Combine Particle Sets modifier has become smarter: Particle types from the two input datasets are now merged and type IDs are automatically remapped.
  • The LAMMPS dump and XYZ file exporters now provide control over the output precision for floating-point numbers.   
  • Added a new option to the Wigner-Seitz defect analysis modifier, which allows to retain the current atomic configuration instead of the reference configuration.
  • Implemented automatic detection of multi-timestep files (for LAMMPS dump and XYZ formats).
  • Added Python bindings for the CorrelationFunctionModifier.
  • Added a file reader for the XSF data format of XCrySDen (atomic structures as well as 3d voxel fields are supported by OVITO).
  • Added Python bindings for the CoordinateTripodOverlay.
  • Modifier templates can now be exported/imported to transfer them between computers.
  • Added the new OSPRay rendering engine.
  • Added handling of out-of-range atom serial numbers in PDB files with more than 99,999 atoms.
  • Bug fix: Stack overflow in Tachyon renderer when rendering a large number of semi-transparent objects
  • Bug fix: Made calls to the FFTW3 library from the Correlation Function modifier thread-safe
  • Reimplemented the displacement vector calculation in the Atomic Strain modifier to fix an error that occurred when the cutoff radius was larger than half the simulation cell size.
  • Added a file writer that can export dislocation lines to the VTK file format used by ParaView.
  • Extended the dislocation inspection utility to display a dislocation’s start and end vertex position.
  • Added support for 64-bit integer particle properties and large datasets with >2 billion particles (only usable from analysis scripts, rendering won’t work for more than 2 billion particles).
  • Changed internal floating-point type from float to double, i.e., all calculations will now be performed with double precision. Memory footprint of the program increases because of this.
  • Performance improvement: The Wigner-Seitz defect analysis now makes use of all processor cores (issue #50).
  • Bug fix: Progress bar is now updated during file export. 
  • Added a file writer for the binary NetCDF format according to the AMBER convention (issue #41).
  • Thanks to a complete redesign of the data pipeline system, modifiers can now access the entire input trajectory, making it possible to implement temporal analyses that operate not just on instantaneous simulation snapshots. A first, simple example is the new Interpolate trajectory modifier, which can interpolate particle positions between simulation frames to create smooth looking animations from coarse sequences of simulation snapshots.
  • Furthermore, modifiers such as Atomic strain, Displacement vectors and Wigner-Seitz defect analysis can now use frame 0 of the currently loaded simulation sequence as reference configuration. It is no longer necessary to load the reference configuration from a separate input file.
  • Several modifier have been generalized and can now operate on other forms of data in addition to particles, e.g. bonds and their properties. Examples are the Assign color, Invert selection, Select Type, Histogram, Scatter plot, Replicate and Delete selected modifiers.
  • The Python programming interface has been redesigned and extended. See this page for more information.
  • Surface meshes, dislocation networks and voxel data grids now carry their own periodic domain information with them. Changing the master simulation cell size no longer screws up the display of these data types.
  • The LAMMPS binary dump file reader automatically detects the endianess used in the file. It can now read files produced on IBM BlueGene/Q machines, for example (issue #23).
  • The Correlation function modifier now exports radial distribution function and structure factor as extra columns to a text file.
  • A VTK file writer has been added, which can export surface triangle meshes produced by the Construct surface mesh and Create Isosurface modifiers.
  • The ovitos script interpreter now accepts (and silently ignores) the -u command line option of CPython for better compatibility with pip install scripts that use this option (issue #43).
  • The Tachyon renderer now obeys the maximum number of parallel threads set by the –nthreads command line option.
  • The Show Periodic Images modifier has been renamed to Replicate modifier. In addition to particles and bonds it now can replicate surfaces, dislocation lines and voxel data grids too (issue #39). 

Release 2.9.0 (27-Jul-17):

  • Added the –nthreads command line option to ovitos as an alternative to -nt (issue #35).
  • Brought back missing stderr output from calls to sys.exit() in ovitos interpreter.
  • Extended the Particle Inspection utility to allow expression-based selection of particles in addition to picking them using the mouse (issue #19).
  • Added a bond-based mode to the Cluster Analysis modifier. It allows forming clusters based on the bond network topology.
  • The OVITO main window now accepts data files and .ovito files via drag & drop (issue #28).
  • Extended the Load Trajectory modifier to also copy other varying particle properties in addition to the particle positions (issue #29).
  • The particle indices displayed by the Particle Inspection utility are now zero-based, consistent with the ParticleIndex variable used by the Expression Selection modifier (issue #21).
  • Added the new ‘Relative face area’ threshold parameter to the Voronoi analysis modifier, which allows filtering out small faces with an area below a specified fraction of the total Voronoi cell surface area (issue #7).
  • Added file parsers for the CASTEP .cell, .geom and .md simulation file formats.
  • Replaced the ‘eliminate homogeneous deformation’ option of the Displacement Vectors modifier with the more general affine mapping setting.
  • On macOS, data files and .ovito files can now be associated with OVTIO and directly opened from the Finder (issue #22).
  • Added the FileSource.loaded_file attribute, which allows accessing the filename of the currently loaded simulation file from a Python script.
  • New modifier: The Voronoi Topology Analysis modifier can classify the Voronoi polyhedra of particles, e.g. to perform structural filtering. 
  • New modifier: The Correlation Function modifier has been contributed by Lars Pastewka. It allows computing the spatial correlation between two particle properties.
  • Bug fix: LAMMPS data file parser ignored Bonds section at end of file when number of bonds is zero
  • New modifier: The Create Isosurface modifier allows to visualize field quantities like the electron density that are defined on a structured data grid. So far, only the POSCAR file parser has been extended to read charge density data from CHGCAR files, which can serve as input for the isosurface modifier. 
  • New modifier: The Coordination Polyhedra modifier constructs convex hulls from the bonded neighbours of atoms. 
  • Bug fix: Unexpected error message during file export when the old mapping for the output file columns has become invalid.
  • Added the ‘Adjust range (all frames)‘ function to the Color Coding modifier, which takes into account all frames of the animation sequence when determining the min/max values of the input property.
  • Added a new user option to the Affine Transformation modifier that enables the transformation of vectorial particle properties like Force and velocity together with the particle positions (issue #11).
  • Bug fix: Need to pass /exit option to Windows version of POV-Ray to automatically close message window after rendering is done (issue #16).
  • Bug fix: Assertion error in Ambient Occlusion modifier when modifier input is empty.
  • The ovito Python module is now usable from external Python interpreters as well, not only ovitos. 
  • Complete overhaul of the internals of the asynchronous data pipeline framework; many improvements to the code. 
  • Dropped backward compatibility with Qt library versions less than 5.4.
  • Bug fix: Parser error when reading a LAMMPS file containing very small numbers on the order of 1e-200 (issue #12). 
  • Bug fix: Windows version always appends .pov to expected file names (issue #13).
  • Bug fix: Create trajectories function does not use correct number of frames from input sequence (issue #6).
  • Added support for omnidirectional stereoscopic rendering to the POV-Ray renderer plugin. This allows producing 360 degrees VR movies (requires POV-Ray 3.7.1).
  • The required system library libstdc++.so.6 is no longer bundled with the Linux version of OVITO, because it causes conflicts with OpenGL drivers on some systems.
  • Reading multi-frame GSD files that contain static data now works correctly.
  • Bug fix: Program crash during parallel access to NetCDF files. Calls to NetCDF library functions are now serialized, because they are not thread-safe.

Release 2.8.2 (24-Jan-17):

  • The Histogram modifier can now compute the distribution of bond properties too (e.g. bond lengths).
  • Modifiers now report an out-of-memory condition. Ovito no longer crashes when a memory allocation fails during modifier evaluation.
  • Fixed viewport rendering and other issues for simulation datasets with a very small length scale (~10-11).
  • Added Python bindings for particle trajectory line generation and visualization.

Release 2.8.1 (17-Dec-16):

  • Bug fix: Segmentation fault after applying a Color Coding modifier with Viridis color map to particle data containing NaN values.
  • Bug fix: Segmentation fault when closing Scatter Plot editor panel.
  • Bug fix: Compute Property modifier failed with an error when preceded by a Dislocation Analysis (DXA) modifier, due to expression variable names containing invalid characters.
  • Added read/write support for LAMMPS data files with atom_style sphere.
  • Added the NearestNeighborFinder.find_at() Python method for querying the nearest particle(s) around an arbitrary spatial position.
  • Added a detailed usage example to the scripting documentation of the WignerSeitzAnalysisModifier to demonstrate the identification of specific point defect types, e.g. antisites.
  • Bug fix: Viewport.render() Python method failed in GUI mode with an error.
  • Bug fix: FileSource.load() Python method failed when called with keyword arguments.
  • Bug fix: Serial computations performed by the data pipeline occupy two processor cores instead of one.  
  • Bug fix: A custom modifier script function, raising an exception and running as part of a data pipeline within ovitos, produced assertion error.
  • Bug fix: Cyclic reference between DataSet and ScriptEngine classes led to a potential memory leak when using Python script modifiers or viewport overlays within a script executed by ovitos.
  • MacOS version of OVITO is now distributed as a signed application bundle in the form of a DMG disk image (avoids “unidentified developer” warning message on first start). 
  • Disabled geometry shaders by default for AMD/ATI hardware on Windows due to compatibility problems reported by some users.
  • Python modifier and Python viewport overlay scripts can now be edited in a separate code editor window.

Release 2.8.0 (23-Nov-16):

  • Added the POV-Ray rendering backend and the POV-Ray scene file exporter.
  • Fully transparent, invisible particles are no longer sent to the Tachyon renderer to avoid artifacts.
  • Replaced QCustomPlot component with QwtPlot component for graph plotting within the GUI.
  • Replaced Boost.Python with pybind11 library to implement OVITO’s Python bindings.
  • The DXA modifier now outputs attributes for the computed line lengths which are broken down by dislocation type.
  • Bug fix: Segmentation fault in Color Coding modifier when input particle property contains infinite values.
  • Fixed an issue with the Freeze Property modifier, which didn’t attach a display object to vector properties.
  • The “Fusion” UI theme is now explicitly activated on Linux. Older builds of OVITO used the “Windows” theme for some reason.
  • Bug fix: Atomic strain calculation failed for 2d simulation cells with zero length along Z.
  • The Linux binaries are now built with the gcc 5.1 compiler.
  • Bug fix: Identify diamond structure modifier did not output the structure counts as global attributes.
  • Removed restriction of LAMMPS binary dump file reader to less than 200k atoms.
  • Added a command line option to the ovitos program, which gives users control over the number of parallel threads used by OVITO.
  • Added depth-of-field rendering to the Tachyon renderer.
  • OVITO can now color dislocation lines based on their Burgers vectors (only BCC crystals so far). Before, coloring was possible only on the basis of dislocation type or dislocation character.
  • Added the ‘Generate perfect dislocations’ option to the DXA modifier, which suppresses the identification of partial dislocations.
  • Improved I/O performance of the LAMMPS data file reader when reading bonds information.
  • Made PDB file reader compatible with files generated by the Gromacs trjconv tool.
  • Extended the Color Coding modifier to support the coloring of vector arrows (in addition to particles and bonds).
  • Bug fix: If the Compute Property modifier is used to create a vector property, the display settings for vector arrows are no longer lost every time the modifier is re-evaluated.
  • The Text Label and Color Legend viewport overlays can now draw an outline around text to make it easier to read on all backgrounds.
  • Disabled some strict conformance checks in the SSH module to improve compatibility with some SSH servers.
  • Bug fix: Viewport.render() Python function raised a Boost.Python.ArgumentError when being called in GUI mode.
  • Bug fix: NetCDF file parser did not recognize unwrapped particle coordinates in files written by LAMMPS.
  • Raised the threshold values for the automatic selection of particle rendering quality. High quality mode is now being used for <4,000 particles, medium mode for <400,000 particles, and low quality mode for everything above.
  • OVITO now ships with the matplotlib Python module. This makes it possible to integrate custom data plots into images or movies rendered by OVITO.
  • Bug fix: Unicode characters are now correctly rendered by the Color Legend viewport overlay.
  • Added Python interface for the FreezePropertyModifier.
  • Added two additional colormaps to the Color Coding modifier: Magma and Viridis.
  • Added a ‘Combine particle sets’ modifier, which allows merging two datasets into one.
  • Added GSD (General Simulation Data) file reader for HOOMD-blue simulation files.
  • Bug fix: Inserting a modifier while scanning an XYZ/LAMMPS input file to discover simulation frames may crash program.
  • The ‘ovitos’ interactive interpreter now creates/loads a separate IPython profile named ‘ovito’ instead of the ‘default’ profile. This reduces inteference with an existing IPython installation on the same system.
  • Workaround: Exporting denormalized floating-point numbers to an output file crashes program due to bug in Boost.Karma library.
  • Regression: Compatibility with high-resolution displays (Retina/Mac OS)
  • Regression: OpenGL rendering does not work in console mode on Windows
  • NetCDF reader now accepts files where particle data is stored in a subgroup named ‘AMBER’.

Release 2.7.1 (28-Aug-16):

  • Integrated IPython in Linux and Mac OS builds of OVITO.
  • Small bug fix in Animation Settings dialog: Changing the frame rate made the time slider jump.
  • Updated the NetCDF file reader to make it compatible with files written by the SimPARTIX code.
  • Updated the VTK file reader to accept empty lines in the header.
  • Updated the IMD file reader, which did not correctly map file columns to standard particle properties with vector components.
  • Updated the CFG file reader to accept empty lines preceding the first header line.
  • Updated the PDB file reader to parse molecule identifiers and types.
  • Added the ParticleTypeProperty.get_type_by_id() and get_type_by_name() methods to the Python interface.
  • Added the DislocationSegment.spatial_burgers_vector property to the Python interface.
  • Added a confirmation message before resetting the URL history list in the SSH connection dialog.

Release 2.7.0 (25-Jul-16):

  • Bug fix: Program crashed when entering a non-valid text into a numeric input field.
  • Added OpenGL driver-bug workaround to fix high-quality rendering of particles on Linux/Intel graphics systems.
  • Improved visual appearance of large number of semi-transparent particles in images generated by the Tachyon renderer.
  • Fixed a bug in the line coarsening routine of the DXA modifier.
  • Periodic image shift vectors of bonds are now accessible from Python scripts.
  • The Atomic Strain calculation modifier can now perform a polar decomposition F=RU of the deformation gradient into a rotation and stretch tensor. 
  • Added a ‘Use only selected particles’ option to the Histogram and Bin and Reduce modifiers, which lets you to restrict the calculation to a subset of particles.
  • Extended the Color Coding modifier so that it can also operate on bonds instead of particles.
  • Added the Compute Bond Lengths modifier, which can be used in conjunction with the Color Coding modifier to color bonds according to their length.
  • Added the Text Label viewport overlay, which provides an easy way of inserting a text label into rendered images and movies. The text can contain placeholders which are replaced with quantities computed by OVITO.
  • Added a text file export function, which allows exporting scalar quantities computed by OVITO to a tabular text file as functions of simulation time. 
  • OVITO can now load XDATCAR trajectory files written by Vasp.
  • Added the Polyhedral Template Matching modifier, which can robustly identify lattice structures at high temperature. 
  • The LAMMPS dump file exporter now writes out the simulation timestep number read from an input dump file to the file header instead of the animation frame.
  • Added the Load Trajectory modifier, which allows loading datasets that consist of separate topology and trajectory files (e.g. a LAMMPS data file with bond definitions and a LAMMPS dump file with atom trajectories).
  • The pair-wise cutoff mode of the Create Bonds modifier is now usable from Python.
  • Improved visual quality of particle display for very distant and small (sub-pixel) particles.
  • Added a ‘lower cutoff’ parameter to the Create Bonds modifier.
  • Scene files that refer to external data file in the same directory can now be transferred to another computer without breaking the link. 
  • Documented the CA dislocation file format in the user manual. This makes it possible to export the extracted dislocation lines and process/analyze them outside of OVITO. 
  • Fixed a bug in the Create Bonds modifier, which produced wrong results when all pair-wise cutoffs were set to values smaller than 1.0.
  • OVITO no longer depends on the CGAL library, making it easier to build it from source.
  • The CA dislocation file importer now supports multi-tilmestep files.
  • Fixed a bug in the Show Periodic Images modifier, which did not replicate bond properties.
  • The behavior of the ovito.io.import_file() Python function has been changed. It no longer adds the created node to the scene, and it is now okay to call this function repeatedly. It also accepts wildcard filenames now to import file sequences. See the updated Python documentation for details.
  • The ovito.io.export_file() Python function now gives full control over which animation frames are being exported.
  • Fixed bug in the Coordination Analysis modifier, which prevented the RDF calculation for 2D systems.

Release 2.6.2 (19-Mar-16):

  • Updated the built-in SSH client to support more encryption methods and improve compatibility with some SSH servers.
  • Small bug fix that solves a (rare) problem with the display of dislocation lines in periodic systems.
  • For very small, periodic simulation cells the Elastic Strain Calculation modifier silently failed for diamond crystals. Now the user is informed that the Show Periodic Images modifier should be applied first to extend the box size.
  • Fixed output of animated GIF files on Linux.
  • Reduced memory footprint of the DXA analysis modifier.
  • The Slice modifier now also cuts surface meshes generated by the Construct Surface Mesh modifier and dislocation lines generated by the DXA analysis modifier.
  • Introduced basic support for 2D systems. The 2D flag can be set in the simulation cell properties panel. The Atomic Strain and Coordination Analysis modifiers then perform the computation in 2D (i.e. the XY plane). 
  • Key-value pairs read from extended XYZ file headers and the LAMMPS timestep number are now accessible from Python via the new DataCollection.attributes property.
  • Added the ‘Number of bins’ parameter to the Coordination Analysis modifier, allowing the user to control the resolution of the generated RDF histogram.
  • Errors generated by Python scripts that are run via the ‘Run script file’ function are now displayed in the GUI.
  • Re-added the ‘Every nth frame’ field to the Render Settings panel, which allows rendering only a subset of animation frames.
  • Fixed import of ‘Aspherical Shape’ particle property values from a file.
  • The export_file() script function can now produce multi-timestep files.
  • Improved automatic detection of PDB files and added parsing of bonds defined by CONECT records.
  • Fixed bug in Elastic Strain Calculation modifier, which got stuck in infinite loop when applied to some complex polycrystalline structures.
  • Moving the viewport camera no longer stops animation playback.
  • Added the ‘Vector Color’ particle property, which allows changing the display color of vector arrows on a per-particle basis.
  • Bug fix: The Create Bonds modifier reported the number of half-bonds, not the number of full bonds generated.
  • Regression: Restricting the Compute Property modifier to selected particles did not work correctly; existing values for unselected particles were always reset to zero.
  • Added the CA file exporter, which allows saving DXA analysis results to disk (and load them again at a later time).

Release 2.6.1 (15-Nov-15):

  • Arrows can now be centered on particles, e.g. to visualize magnetic moments and other vector properties. Atomic force vectors and dipole vectors read from simulation files can now be directly visualized.
  • The Tachyon renderer now supports transparent backgrounds.
  • The Color Legend and Coordinate Tripod viewport overlays can now be repositioned with the mouse.
  • Display objects that are generated by modifiers no longer temporarily disappear from the pipeline editor list while playing an animation. 
  • The PDB file parser now accepts lines with up to 83 characters to support files written by Accelrys Discovery Studio.
  • Fixed regression in CA file importer, which is broken in previous release.

Release 2.6.0 (02-Nov-15):

  • Added the <a+c> dislocation type for HCP crystals to the Dislocation Analysis modifier.
  • Added the Elastic Strain Calculation modifier, which computes the atomic-level elastic strain and deformation gradient tensors in crystalline systems. It can be used to analyze local elastic distortions in a crystal lattice and to determine the local crystal orientation.
  • The modification pipeline editor now allows changing the application order of modifiers via drag and drop.
  • Added the Dislocation Inspection utility, which lets you obtain further information about dislocation segments extracted by the Dislocation Analysis modifier.
  • Added an introduction to OVITO’s animation system to the manual, which explains how to animate parameters and the camera.
  • The Compute Property modifier can now perform computations that take into account the local neighborhood of particles. For example, you can use this to average a quantity over spherical regions around each particle.
  • The Wigner-Seitz analysis modifier can now break down the computed site occupancy number into per-type numbers. This makes it easier to identify antisite defects, for example.
  • Viewports are no longer automatically zoomed to show everything when replacing the currently loaded dataset with a new one. This makes it easier to preserve the current view configuration when switching to a different simulation file.
  • Fixed the assignment of dislocation lines that were loaded from a CrystalAnalysis file to Burgers vectors families. The CA file import was broken since version 2.4.4.
  • Added a ‘bond-based’ mode to the Common Neighbor Analysis modifier, which computes the CNA indices based on existing bonds between particles. The modifier also outputs the computed CNA bond indices as a new bond property. This enables, for example, analyses of disordered systems using the classical CNA.
  • It is now possible to write you own modifiers in Python.
  • Added a ‘Use only selected particles’ option to the Common Neighbor Analysis and the Identify Diamond Structure modifiers, which allows identifying sub-lattices.
  • Added the NearestNeighborFinder Python class, which can be used from Python scripts to find the N nearest neighbors of a particle.
  • Python scripts can now access the dislocation lines extracted by the DislocationAnalysisModifier. 
  • Bug fix: Bond properties like the bond type are now updated when dangling bonds are removed due to deleted particles.
  • Fixed bug in Atomic Strain modifier, which produced weird results when PBC flags of reference configuration do not match PBC flags of deformed configuration. Now PBC flags of deformed configuration always override the boundary conditions of the reference simulation cell.
  • Fixed error in ovito.dataset.scene_nodes.__iter__() Python method.
  • Fixed bug in file parser that led to wrong particle type names when loading a multi-frame XYZ file with varying set of named atom types.
  • Bug fixes in Python-ASE interface – Cell matrix is transposed and duplicate properties are handled.

Release 2.5.1 (07-Aug-15):

  • The LAMMPS data file exporter can now produce files with LAMMPS atom styles other than ‘atomic’. It also exports bonds if present.
  • Arbitrary triclinic simulation cells can now be exported to the LAMMPS data file format. They will be automatically transformed to the canonical LAMMPS representation.
  • The LAMMPS data file parser now reads bond types.
  • Added the fmod(A,B) math function to the Compute Property and Expression Select modifiers.
  • Added visualization support for cylindrical and spherocylindrical particles.
  • Added a file parser for FHI-aims log files, which can contain multiple simulation frames.
  • Added the ‘Indicate line direction’ option to the dislocation display object.

Release 2.5.0 (25-Jul-15):

  • Added Python interface for Bin and Reduce modifier.
  • Fixed viewport font issue on Macs with high-dpi display.
  • Added the Expand Selection modifier.
  • Added a ‘No bonds between different molecules’ option to the Create Bonds modifier.
  • Changed the behavior of the IMD file exporter: All particle properties to be exported, including the standard ones defined by the IMD format, must now be explicitly selected by the user.
  • Integrated DXA (Dislocation Extraction Algorithm) into OVITO. 
  • Voronoi analysis modifier can now output bonds between neighboring atoms which share a Voronoi face.
  • Python scripting interface now allows conversion to/from ASE Atoms objects.
  • Python scripting interface now supports write access to particle properties and procedural generation of input particle datasets for OVITO’s modification pipeline.
  • Bug fix: Large number of simultaneous SFTP download requests led to error message ‘SFTP error: Server could not start session’.
  • Bug fix: Using the Python viewport overlay led to program crash on Windows 8 x64.
  • Scripting function Viewport.render() now returns the rendered image, which can be manipulated before saving it to disk.
  • Certain modifier and display parameters can now be animated using animation keys.
  • Fixed OpenGL rendering of bonds/arrows on certain Windows/NVidia systems.
  • Added import/export support for FHI-aims file format.
  • Colors and radii used for particle types (as well as structure types) can now be predefined by the user.
  • Migrated to version 5.4 of the Qt library. This may affect OpenGL rendering and the viewport display. Please report any issues that you experience.
  • Bin & Reduce modifier now takes into account the simulation box origin, uses double precision numbers to perform calculations, and 1D-plot now spans the entire interval.
  • Bug fix: NetCDF file importer doesn’t close file handle, leading to error after loading several thousand frames.
  • Bug fix: LAMMPS data file parser stumbles over ‘AngleTorsion Coeffs’ file section.
  • Visualization of particle trajectory lines.
  • Frequently used modifiers or combinations of modifiers can be saved (including modifier settings) for quick access. 
  • Rendering of ellipsoidal and box particles with orientation.
  • Positioning the mouse over a bond shows its properties in the status bar.
  • Fixed initialization of the Select Particle Type modifier.
  • Fixed error when loading a compressed simulation file >2GB.

Release 2.4.4 (29-Mar-15):

  • Fixed error when rendering a high-resolution video.
  • Surface mesh computed by ConstructSurfaceModifier can now be exported to a VTK file from Python.
  • Added Python class ovito.data.CutoffNeighborFinder, which enables access to particle neighbor lists from Python.
  • Particles and bonds are now rendered in chunks in the OpenGL viewports to work around a memory limit on some graphics hardware.
  • Bond cylinders are now rendered using a geometry shader if supported by the graphics card.
  • The IMD file exporter now lets the user select the particle properties to export (instead of exporting all).
  • The VTK triangle mesh importer now reads per-face color information.

Release 2.4.3 (02-Mar-15):

  • Upgraded integrated script interpreter from Python 2.7 to Python 3.4. Please update your scripts to make them compatible with Python 3.
  • Added rendering support for particles with non-cubic, axis-aligned box shape (via ‘Aspherical shape’ particle property)
  • Added a dialog box to the Affine Transformation modifier, which lets the user enter a rotation axis, angle, and center.
  • Removed cutoff option from Voronoi Analysis modifier in favour of a faster algorithm for orthogonal simulation cells, which is based on Voro++ container classes.
  • The Voronoi Analysis modifier now determines the maximum number of edges per face in the Voronoi tessellation and warns if it exceeds the truncation length of computed Voronoi index vectors.
  • OVITO can now load bonds from LAMMPS data files.
  • The Freeze Property modifier now works when particles are lost during the simulation.
  • Similarly, the Atomic Strain analysis can now deal with simulations where the number of particles is not constant.
  • The Wrap at Periodic Boundaries modifier now wraps bonds crossing a periodic boundary.
  • Added a scriptable viewport overlay, which allows to paint custom text and graphics over the rendered image. See how you can use it to add a scale bar to a viewport.
  • The Show Periodic Images modifier now replicates bonds too.
  • The XYZ file import now displays the file’s comment line in the status field.
  • Switched from MinGW to Visual C++ 2013 compiler to build Windows version. Python scripting is now supported by the 64-bit program version for Windows too.
  • Removed old Javascript plugin.
  • Bug fix: –version command line option causes program to crash.
  • Bug fix: XYZ file column mapping dialog showed the column names from the last loaded extended XYZ file.

Release 2.4.2 (14-Nov-14):

  • The Color Coding modifier now supports user-defined color maps.
  • Significantly improved performance of cutoff-based neighbor finding and k-nearest neighbor search routines. This code optimization speeds up many analysis algorithms in OVITO, in particular for large datasets.
  • Added the Identify Diamond Structure analysis function, which finds atoms that form a cubic or hexagonal diamond lattice.
  • Dialog box asking to save changes is only shown when scene has already been saved before.
  • The Color Legend overlay now provides an option to overwrite the numeric labels with a custom text.
  • Bug fix: Periodic boundary flags were not correctly updated when loading a new file using the ‘Pick new local input file’ button.
  • Bug fix: Viewport.render() Python function raised error when called without a RenderSettings object.

Release 2.4.1 (01-Nov-14):

  • New integrated Python engine, which provides a powerful scripting interface (see scripting documentation). This is going to replace the Javascript engine, which has been deprecated and will be removed in a future program version. Command line options to run old scripts have been renamed to –jsscript and –jsexec.
  • New Voronoi analysis modifier, which can compute atomic volumes, coordination numbers and Voronoi indices.
  • It’s now possible to include the coordinate system tripod and a color legend in the rendered image.
  • Particle properties are displayed in the status bar when hovering over particles in the viewports.
  • Periodic boundary conditions can be overridden by the user without the changes being lost when a new simulation frame is loaded.
  • Added import/export support for extended XYZ format (see http://jrkermode.co.uk/quippy/io.html#extendedxyz), which includes metadata describing the data columns and the simulation cell.
  • Improved input and output performance for text-based file formats.
  • The OpenGL renderer can now display semi-transparent particles and surfaces.
  • Added calculation of non-affine displacements to Atomic strain modifier. (This is Falk & Langer’s D2min measure, see the 1998 PRB.)
  • New Bin and reduce analysis modifier.
  • The Create bonds modifier can now handle particles that are located outside a (periodic) simulation box.
  • The Color coding modifier can display a color legend in the rendered image.
  • Added a file parser for PDB files (still experimental).
  • Added basic keyframe animation support. Some modifier parameters and other settings can now be animated. Future versions will also offer camera animation capabilities.
  • The Show periodic images modifier can now assign unique IDs to particle copies.
  • LAMMPS data file parser now supports additional LAMMPS atom styles such as ‘charge’ and ‘bond’.
  • Fixed high-quality particle rendering on Windows computers with Intel HD 4000 graphics.
  • Bug fix: Export of compressed LAMMPS data files could result in truncated files.
  • Bug fix: Solid volume computed by ‘Construct surface mesh’ modifier could be inaccurate due to low numerical precision
  • Bug fix: ‘Construct surface mesh’ modifier crashed with certain input data.
  • Bug fix: VTK mesh file parser couldn’t handle multiple points per line (as written by ParaView).
  • Bug fix: LAMMPS data file parser did not parse atom IDs.
  • Bug fix: Particle inspection utility did not recalculate displayed distances and angles upon simulation frame change.
  • Bug fix: StrainTensor.XZ and StrainTensor.YZ components output by Atomic Strain modifier were swapped.
  • Bug fix: Fixed issue in Histogram modifier that occured when the x-range was fixed to an interval smaller than the value range.
  • Bug fix: Atom type ordering is now maintained when importing a sequence of LAMMPS dump files with named atom types.

Release 2.3.3 (22-May-14):

  • Added user options to application settings dialog that provide control over certain OpenGL-related settings. This allows working around compatibility problems on some systems.
  • User can now choose between a dark and a light viewport color scheme.
  • Added scripting interface for Tachyon renderer.
  • Added support for NetCDF files with variable particle numbers and with named particle types.
  • Added user options that control the automatic fetching of the news page from the web server and the transmission of the installation ID.
  • Fixed bug in camera orbit mode, which was not correctly restricting the camera rotation for some coordinate system orientations.

Release 2.3.2 (07-Apr-14):

  • Fixed bug in Wigner-Seitz analysis modifier, which could cause a program crash when numbers of atoms in reference and current configuration differ.

Release 2.3.1 (01-Apr-14):

  • Added saving and loading of presets for file-column-to-property mappings.
  • Added the –exec command line option, which allows to directly execute a script command or to pass parameters to a script file.
  • When opening an XYZ file, the column mapping dialog now displays an excerpt from the file’s header to help the user figure out the mapping.
  • The Construct Surface Modifier no longer creates cap polygons if the periodic simulation cell contains no particles.

Release 2.3.0 (29-Mar-14):

  • Added the new scripting interface, which allows to automate tasks.
  • Added the ‘Freeze property’ modifier, which can prevent a particle property from changing over time.
  • Added the ‘Scatter plot’ modifier, which plots one particle property against another. This modifier has been contributed by Lars Pastewka.
  • Added the ‘Wigner-Seitz analysis’ modifier, which can identify vacancies and interstitials in a lattice.
  • Added a file importer for NetCDF files. Code was contributed by Lars Pastewka.
  • Added more input variables to the ‘Compute property’ and ‘Expression select’ modifiers (e.g. reduced particle coordinates and simulation cell size).
  • It’s now possible to load a sequence of files with each file containing multiple frames.
  • Fixed bug in CFG file importer, which did not read triclinic simulation cells correctly.
  • Fixed shader compilation error on OpenGL 2.0 systems and some other OpenGL related issues.

Release 2.2.4 (29-Jan-14):

  • Fixed particle picking issue on computers with Intel graphics.
  • Fixed OpenGL display issues on systems with Intel graphics.
  • Fixed blurred viewport captions.
  • Fixed program crash when changing particle radius/color without having selected a particle type first.

Release 2.2.3 (16-Jan-14):

  • Fixed the CFG file importer, which can now read CFG files written by newer versions of LAMMPS correctly. Auxiliary file columns are automatically mapped to OVITO’s standard particle properties if possible.
  • Modified particle file importers to ensure stable ordering of particle types (using lexicographical ordering when atom types have names, and ID-based ordering otherwise). The ordering of named particle types is now independent of their first occurrence in the input file.
  • Improved compatibility with some OpenGL implementations (Intel HD graphics on Windows and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470).
  • A 64-bit version of the program is now available for Windows.
  • A construction grid can be displayed in the viewports.

Release 2.2.2 (05-Jan-14):

  • Fixed the following regression: Rendering a video with OVITO 2.2.1 resulted in an empty movie file.
  • Fixed display of the polygon path when using Fence selection (Manual Selection modifier).

Release 2.2.1 (26-Dec-13):

  • Added a file parser for binary LAMMPS dump files.
  • Added a dialog window that displays information about the system’s OpenGL graphics driver. This dialog can be accessed via the Help menu.
  • Fixed bug in the Expression Select and Compute Property modifiers, which couldn’t handle particle property names that start with a number.
  • The OpenGL compatibility profile is now used instead of the core profile on Windows and Linux platforms.
  • Fixed an issue in the Construct Surface Mesh modifier, which sometimes led to a program crash on Windows.

Release 2.2.0 (15-Dec-13):

  • The Construct Surface Mesh modifier has been added, which builds a polygonal mesh around a particle set.
  • The Cluster Analysis modifier has been added, which decomposes a particle system into clusters.
  • A new experimental visualization module has been added, which allows working with data generated by the Crystal Analysis Tool and the Dislocation Extraction Algorithm (DXA).
  • The Coordination Analysis modifier can now export the computed radial distribution function to a text file. 
  • Added a new user option to the application settings dialog that allows turning off the restriction of the vertical camera rotation.
  • Added the File->New Window menu item, which opens another OVITO window. This makes life easier on the Mac OS platform, where starting multiple instances of the application is difficult.
  • The XYZ file exporter now writes particle type names instead of numeric type identifiers.
  • Added help buttons to parameter panels, which open the corresponding page in the user manual.
  • The manual is now included in every installation package. An internet connection is no longer necessary to access the manual.
  • Fixed the rendering of particle markers.

Release 2.1.0 (15-Nov-13):

  • The Manual Selection modifier has been added, which allows selecting individual particles with the mouse in the viewports. With the “Fence selection” mode, a group of particles can be easily selected by drawing a closed path around it.
  • OVITO is now able to display particles with cubic and square shape. This can be useful in visualizing large 2d lattice systems or Ising models.
  • OVITO now gives the user the option to import more than one dataset into the same scene and display them side by side.
  • A newly added VTK file importer allows reading triangle meshes to visualize geometric objects such as an indentor tip.
  • Camera objects can be created through the viewport context menu. A viewport can be linked to a camera object to show the corresponding view.
  • The OpenGL rendering code has been updated to better support older graphics cards and to improve compatibility with more graphics drivers.
  • The Tachyon renderer now supports semi-transparent particles. The transparency is controlled through the “Transparency” particle property. Use, for instance, the Computer Property modifier to set this property for certain particles. Transparency values can range from 0 (=fully opaque) to 1 (=not visible). Note that the interactive OpenGL renderer does not support transparency yet. Thus, all particles will still appear fully opaque here.
  • When importing a sequence of simulation snapshots, one can now configure the mapping of input frames to OVITO’s internal animation frames. This allows to generate output movies with fewer (or more) frames than the imported snapshot sequence. This feature is in preparation for a future camera animation system.
  • The Mac OS version is now built against version 5.2 (beta) of the Qt library. This should fix a nasty UI bug on this platform (due to the old version of that library), which made text fields lose input focus.
  • Fixed saving/loading of the gradient type selected in the Color Coding modifier.
  • Fixed a program deadlock when dragging the time slider with the mouse after loading a file sequence from a remote location.

Release 2.0.3 (22-Oct-13):

  • Ported Tachyon raytracing renderer from old OVITO 1.1.0 release. This software-based rendering engine allows to produce images with high-quality shading and ambient occlusion lighting.
  • The Create Bonds modifier will automatically turn off the display of bonds when (accidentally?) creating a large number of bonds (>1 million), which would make the program freeze for at least several seconds.
  • The Displacement Vectors modifier now supports relative reference frames, i.e., displacements can be calculated from two snapshots separated by a fixed time interval. Before this addition, the modifier could only compute displacements with respect to a fixed reference simulation snapshot.
  • The Inspect Particle applet now lets one select multiple particles and can report distances and angles between particles.
  • Added ‘Clear history’ button to remote file import dialog.
  • The POSCAR file exporter now writes the new file format, which includes atom type names.
  • Added support for computers with high-resolution (Retina) displays.
  • Fixed bug in the Affine Transformation modifier leading to recursive updates.

Release 2.0.2 (30-Sep-13):

  • Fixed loading of multi-timestep files with names containing a digit.
  • Fixed import of CFG file with atom type information.

Release 2.0.1 (27-Sep-13):

  • Fixed loading of file sequences based on wildcard pattern on Windows platform.
  • Replaced const arrays in GLSL shaders with uniform variables to support older Intel graphics chips.

Release 2.0.0 (25-Sep-13):

  • Many changes, almost complete rewrite of OVITO’s code base.