VESTA is a 3D visualization program for structural models and 3D grid data such as electron/nuclear densities. Some of the novel features of VESTA are listed below.
- Deal with structural models and volumetric data at the same window.
- Support multiple tabs corresponding to files.
- Support multiple windows with more than two tabs in the same process.
- Deal with virtually unlimited number of objects such as atoms, bonds polyhedra, and polygons on isosurfaces (theoretical limit on 32bit operating system is 1,073,741,823)
- Support lattice transformation from conventional to non-conventional lattice by using matrix. The transformation matrix is also used to create superlattice and sublattice.
- Visualize interatomic distances and bond angles that are restrained in Rietveld analysis with RIETAN-FP.
- Transparent isosurfaces can be overlap with structural models.
- Isosurface can be colored on the basis of another physical quantity.
- Arithmetic operations among multiple volumetric data files.
- High quality smooth rendering of isosurfaces and sections.
- Export high-resolution graphic images exceeding Video card limitation.
- MUCH better performance than VICS and VEND. For example, bonds search speed in VESTA is several to thousands times faster than that in VICS. Algorithm for calculation of isosurface geometry is more than six times efficient than that in VEND.
VESTA is a successor to two 3D visualization programs, VICS and VEND, in the VENUS (Visualization of Electron/NUclear and Structures) software package.
VESTA runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is contributed free of charge for non-commercial users.