Branton J. Campbell and Harold T. Stokes, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84606, USA, branton_campbell@byu.edu Bob Hanson, Dept. of Chemistry, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota 55057, USA, hansonr@stolaf.edu
Interactively visualize ISODISTORT output containing distorted crystal structures and their diffraction patterns, parameterized with group-theoretical symmetry-modes. See the isodistort-swingJS GitHub project.
ISOVIZ returned to the web-browser scene in July 2025 as a Javascript app. This was accomplished with Bob Hanson's java-to-javascript (j2s) transpiler. The new ISOVIZ contains multiple apps (distortions, diffraction, and more) in tabbed windows. It can be launched in any common browser from the ISODISTORT web app. And once opened, one can drag other locally saved ISOVIZ and ISODISTORT-distortion files into the Javascript window for viewing.
Alternatively, one can also download/install the 2025 Java JAR file on a computer to open locally-saved ISOVIZ and ISODISTORT-distortion files offline. Both GUI and command-line use are possible. Once the Java app is open, one can drag other ISOVIZ and ISODISTORT-distortion into the app window for viewing.
The older (pre-2025) Java JAR files and stand-alone Java executables listed below have been DEPRECATED and will eventually disappear.
We thank Manfred Riem (@mnriem) for wrapping the pre-2016 Java applet as a stand-alone application and creating Windows and MacOSX installers. You may want to associate .isoviz and .isovizq files with the stand-alone ISOVIZ and ISOVIZQ executables, respectively, to make opening a data file in either application more convenient.
The ISOVIZ and ISOVIZQ JAR files are an alternative to stand-alone executiables, but require that the
Java Runtime Environment (JRE versions 8-10) be installed on your computer (Windows MacOS, or Linux, but not mobile-devices).
They can be opened from the command line as follows:
java -cp yourpath/isoviz.jar isoapps.Isoviz
java -cp yourpath/isoviz.jar isoapps.Isoviz yourdata.txt
java -cp yourpath/isovizq.jar isoapps.IsovizQ
java -cp yourpath/isovizq.jar isoapps.IsovizQ yourdata.txt
One can either provide the name of the data file or navigate to it from within the app.
If you try to view a distorted structure with an exceptionally large number of atoms,
you may need to increase the run-time memory allocated to the JRE by adding -Xmx256m
as a run-time setting in the Java Console (increases allocation to 256 megabytes).
Also, if you find that the application controls are not all fully visible,
it may help to add -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false as an additional run-time setting.