Input file formats

OVITO can directly read the following file formats:

Format name	Description	Imported data types
LAMMPS data	File format used by the LAMMPS molecular dynamics code.	particles, bonds, angles, dihedrals, impropers	Details
LAMMPS dump atom LAMMPS dump custom	File format used by the LAMMPS molecular dynamics code. OVITO supports both text-based and binary dump files.	particles	Details
LAMMPS dump local	File format written by the dump local command of LAMMPS. OVITO’s Load trajectory modifier can read varying bond topology and per-bond quantities from such files generated in reactive molecular dynamics simulations.	bonds	Details
LAMMPS dump grid	File format containing volumetric data written by the dump grid command of LAMMPS.	voxel grids	Details
ReaxFF bonds	File format written by the LAMMPS fix reaxff/bonds command and the original ReaxFF code of Adri van Duin. OVITO’s Load trajectory modifier can read the bond topology, bond order and atomic charges dumped during ReaxFF molecular dynamics simulations.	bonds	Details
XYZ	Simple column-based text format for particle data, which is documented here. OVITO can read the extended XYZ format, which supports arbitrary sets of particle data columns, and can store additional information such as the simulation cell geometry and boundary conditions.	particles	Details
POSCAR / XDATCAR / CHGCAR	File formats used by the ab initio simulation package VASP. OVITO can import atomistic configurations and also charge density fields from CHGCAR files.	particles, voxel grids
Gromacs GRO	Coordinate file format used by the GROMACS simulation code.	particles	Details
Gromacs XTC	Trajectory file format used by the GROMACS simulation code.	particles	Details
DCD	Trajectory file format written by the CHARMM, NAMD, and LAMMPS simulation codes.	particles
CFG (AtomEye)	File format used by the AtomEye visualization program.	particles	Details
NetCDF	Binary format for molecular dynamics data following the AMBER format convention. NetCDF files are produced by the LAMMPS dump netcdf command.	particles
CIF	Crystallographic Information File format as specified by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). Parser supports only small-molecule crystal structures.	particles
PDB	Protein Data Bank (PDB) files.	particles
PDBx/mmCIF	The PDBx/mmCIF format stores macromolecular structures and is used by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank.	particles
Quantum Espresso	Input data format used by the Quantum Espresso electronic-structure calculation code.	particles
FHI-aims	Geometry and log-file formats used by the ab initio simulation package FHI-aims.	particles
GSD/HOOMD	Binary molecular dynamics format written by the HOOMD-blue code. See GSD (General Simulation Data) format.	particles, bonds, angles, dihedrals, impropers	Details
CASTEP	File format used by the CASTEP ab initio code. OVITO can read the `.cell`, `.md` and `.geom` formats.	particles
XSF	File format used by the XCrySDen program.	particles, voxel grids
Cube	File format used by the Gaussian simulation package and other ab initio codes.	particles, voxel grids	Details
IMD	File format used by the molecular dynamics code IMD.	particles
DL_POLY	File format used by the molecular simulation package DL_POLY.	particles
ASE database pro	Structure database files written by the Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE)	particles	Details
ASE trajectory pro	Simulation trajectory files written by the Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE)	particles	Details
GALAMOST	XML-based file format used by the GALAMOST molecular dynamics code.	particles, bonds
VTK (legacy format)	File format used by the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and the software ParaView. The format is described here. The file reader currently supports only ASCII-based files containing PolyData and UnstructuredGrid data with triangular cells.	triangle meshes
VTI (VTK ImageData)	XML-based file format used by the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and the software ParaView. The format is described here. The file reader currently supports only a subset of the full format specification and is geared towards files written by the Aspherix simulation code.	voxel grids
VTP (VTK PolyData)	XML-based file format used by the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and the software ParaView. The format is described here. The file reader currently supports only a subset of the full format specification and is geared towards mesh geometry and particle data files written by the Aspherix simulation code. VTK PolyData blocks consisting of triangle strips or polygons are imported as surface meshes by OVITO. PolyData consisting of vertices only are imported as a set of particles.	surface meshes, particles
VTM (VTK MultiBlock)	XML-based file format used by the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and the software ParaView. VTK multiblock data files are meta-files that point to a list of VTK XML files, which will all be loaded by OVITO as a single data collection.	any
PVD (ParaView data file)	XML-based file format used by the software ParaView, which describes a trajectory formed by a sequence of individual data files. The file format is described here.	any
OBJ	Text-based file format for triangle meshes (see here).	triangle meshes
STL	File format for triangle meshes, text and binary variants (see here).	triangle meshes
PARCAS	File format written by the MD simulation code Parcas developed in K. Nordlund’s group at University of Helsinki.	particles
oxDNA	Configuration/topology file format used by the oxDNA simulation code for coarse-grained DNA models.	particles, bonds

OVITO Pro additionally provides the option for you to write custom file readers in Python to import more formats.