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Overview

Purpose

The program pikashu is meant to read many types of atomic position files, and convert them to many other formats. A list of supported formats is given here. Additionnaly, pikashu can also perform some simple transformations of atomic positions.

This program does not deal with data such as atom velocities, potential energies, forces or whatsoever. Only with atomic positions. Hence some data can be lost when converting from one format to another (again, only atomic positions are preserved).

Quick start

To compile the program, simply enter the src directory and type "make all". This should work on most machines, otherwise read further instructions here.

This program is meant to be simple to use. If you know nothing about programming, do not know where to start, and/or only want to convert a file, simply run the program in a command-line:

pikashu

and the program will ask you what you want to do. Another way of using this program to convert a file is to use the so-called normal mode, which allows to convert a file into a specific format:

pikashu <inputfile> <format>

Getting help from the command-line

To display a brief reminder of command-line parameters, you can type:

pikashu -help

Further capabilities

Despite this will of simplicity, pikashu can also do elaborate things, like simultaneous output to multiple formats, conversion of multiple files, compute differences in atomic positions, merging two systems,apply some simple transformations to atomic positions... For more advanced use, refer to the sections in the online help.

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