OVITO setup on Linux

OVITO (Open Visualization Tool) is widely used to visualize and analyze atomistic simulation data, especially from LAMMPS. This is a minimal, tarball-based setup guide for Linux.

1. Download OVITO

Download the Linux tarball from the official site:

https://www.ovito.org/#download

2. Extract the Tar File

tar -xvf ovito-basic-*.tar.gz
cd ovito-basic-*

3. Run OVITO

./bin/ovito

If the GUI opens, OVITO is ready to use.

4. Fix Missing Dependencies (If It Fails)

If OVITO does not start, the terminal will list missing shared libraries (commonly Qt/XCB related). Install whatever it complains about. Example for Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S libxkbcommon xcb-util xcb-util-keysyms xcb-util-wm

Re-run ./bin/ovito after installing them.

5. Load a LAMMPS Dump File

To visualize LAMMPS output, load a dump.lammpstrj file.

Open OVITO.
Click File → Load File.
Select your dump.lammpstrj file.

OVITO will automatically detect the LAMMPS dump format.