Build requirements

The prerequisites for building OVITO from source are:

Tool/Package	Requirement	Notes
C++ compiler	required	Support for C++17 language standard is required
CMake	required	The build system used by OVITO (CMake 3.12 or newer required)
Git	required	The distributed version control system needed to retrieve the source code

The library dependencies are:

Library	Requirement	Notes
Qt	required	Used for OVITO’s graphical user interface (version 6.2 or higher)
zlib	optional	Required for reading and writing compressed files.
Boost	required	OVITO uses some utility classes from this C++ library.
libssh	optional	Used by OVITO’s built-in SSH client for remote data access.
ffmpeg	optional	Video processing libraries used by OVITO to write movie files.
libnetcdf	optional	Required by the Amber/NetCDF file reader/writer plugin

The sources of the following third-party libraries are included in the OVITO source distribution and get compiled automatically as part of the build process:

Library	Notes
muparser	A math expression parser library.
Qwt	For plotting and data visualization.
Voro++	Voronoi cell construction routine required by the Voronoi analysis modifier.
KISS FFT	Required by the Spatial correlation function plugin.