We strive to build a vibrant and supportive community around OVITO, and we believe this move can strengthen the exchange within the computational materials science community and the OVITO user base. Transitioning to matsci.org will enable you to tap into a broader, interdisciplinary community, which means you can get in touch with domain experts more easily and discuss topics that go beyond OVITO and concern other simulation tools.
The matsci.org platform offers an improved user experience, making it easier for you to navigate and engage in the forum. All members of Team OVITO are designated as “OVITO Project Representatives” and participate in the discussions on matsci.org. We strive to provide the same prompt and helpful responses here that you have come to appreciate from us.
For our valued OVITO Pro customers we provide an exclusive space at ovito.org/forum, where you can reach us directly and expect in-depth professional support from the OVITO developers and dedicated experts.
With due respect, I think one clarification would be helpful. Many of the previous ovito forum posts are now under paywall. Even there are many help posts in this matsci forum whose solution in the reply refer to an old thread in the ovito forum. Now maybe those old posts in the ovito forun prior to this decision could be migrated to here or the paywall on them be removed? It would greatly help us researchers who would like to use open source products without means to pay for proprietory ones. Thanks!
Thank you for expressing your concern. We’ve looked into this idea, but unfortunately, due to technical limitations of the original forum software we run on our website, it is not easy for us to keep the contents of the old forum accessible in a read-only mode or to export them. Furthermore, a lot of information and solutions in the old forum are outdated (because OVITO has evolved a lot in recent years). Since this has repeatedly caused confusion and cost us valuable time, we would rather not keep outdated content visible for too long.
I would like to make it clear, however, that this transition does not establish a paywall. On the contrary, by moving our free support activities over to MatSci (a community-driven public space), you can be assured that all information will now remain available for the long term. We encourage you to post all your questions (even old ones) here and we will be happy to answer them again - in many cases better than we could back then. Also, the whole community can contribute. If you encounter links that still lead to the now private forum, please bring them to our attention. We will then copy any useful information to the public matsci thread, checking that the suggested solutions are still up-to-date.
I would also like to point out that over the years we’ve made an effort to add solutions from the forum to OVITO’s main documentation, e.g., providing more code examples in the Python API reference. This information is then kept up to date as OVITO evolves.
I use Ovito Pro but I set up my licensed copy using the username of an IT-provided account that is not linked to my Ovito forum account. I have access to the key, however there is currently no way to deactivate an installation without the original owner’s intervention via the website. Unfortunately, the person responsible is on leave, so I don’t expect to be able to quickly solve this. All my colleagues are in this situation, resulting in suddenly losing access to the pro forum even though we have active licenses.
To keep your personal information private, I have sent you a direct message with further instructions on how to resolve this issue without having to wait for your license owner to return from their leave. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Edit: If you’re in the same situation, please contact [email protected]. We will then approve your account for the forum.