Timelines

This program supports loading a "timeline" of structures at once. In this mode, the timeline bar will be available to play the structure's history:

Image of the timeline slider enabled

Here, there are a handful of options for adjusting the history playback:

Tool Description
Jump To Start Jumps to the start of the timeline
Jump To End Jumps to the end of the timeline
Timeline Slider Displays and sets current position in timeline
Play/Pause Starts/stops the history playback
Delay Time to wait between frames. Note this may be limited by performance
Rate Number of frames to advance at a time during playback

Opening In Timeline Mode

There are two ways to open a structure in timeline mode. The first method is to simply select multiple files when loading a structure from a file:

Example of opening multiple structure files at once

This will open files in the order they appear at the bottom.

The second method for opening a structure in timeline mode is if the file format already supports it. In particular, if multiple structures are concatenated together in a singular .xyz file, it will be interpreted as a timeline:

8
Atoms.
Ba 0.0 0.0 0.0
Ba 0.0 0.0 1.0
8
Atoms.
Ba 1.0 0.0 0.0
Ba 0.0 0.0 2.0

Finally, template files support timelines, and saving one will save the entire timeline.

Other Notes

Due to the performance cost of updating the atom list table every time the current structure changes, it has been disabled in timeline mode:

Selection list disabled in timeline mode

Additionally, the user must choose whether changes in atom selections/visibility apply to just the current structure, or the entire timeline. This can be done using the dropdown on the left panel:

Timeline apply mode select

Finally, displacement vectors are a feature exclusive to timeline mode. Briefly, they allow the user to track changes in atom positions over time.