Color coding

This modifier colors particles based on one of their properties. It can be used to visualize per-particle quantities.

The per-particle values of the selected property are first mapped and clamped to the unit interval [0,1] according to the Start value and End value parameters of the modifier. The normalized values are then mapped to a corresponding particle color using the selected color gradient map.

The Adjust range button resets the Start value and End value parameters to the minimum and maximum values of the selected particle property. This ensures that no clamping occurs when values are mapped to a color. The Reverse range button swaps the Start value and End value parameters to effectively reverse the color scale.

Custom color maps

The modifier provides a set of predefined color maps that you can choose from. If you want to define your own color scale, select Load custom color map... from the gradient list box. The program will then ask you to pick an image file which contains the colors of you custom color map. With this feature you can import arbitrary color maps into OVITO by preparing a corresponding image with an external image editor. OVITO uses the colors along one row of pixels of the image to generate a user-defined color map. Here are two example color map images:

Color legend

You can insert a color legend into rendered images and videos by adding a Color legend overlay to the active viewport.

Parameters

Property

The input particle property to be used for color mapping.

Color gradient

The type of color map to use.

Start & end value

Controls the source range for the linear mapping of particle values to the [0,1] unit interval.

Color only selected particles

This option restricts the assignment of colors to selected particles. The existing colors of unselected particles will be preserved.

Keep particles selected

OVITO uses a red color by default to highlight selected particles. Since this highlighting would mask the actual color assigned by this modifier, the modifier clears the current selection by default. If you need to preserve the selection for further use down the pipeline, you can suppress this behavior by checking this option.