# Visualize LAMMPS snapshots

Snapshots from LAMMPS simulations can be viewed, visualized, and
analyzed in a variety of ways.

LAMMPS snapshots are created by the [dump](dump) command, which can
create files in several formats. The native LAMMPS dump format is a text
file (see \"dump atom\" or \"dump custom\") which can be visualized by
[several visualization tools](https://www.lammps.org/viz.html)\_ for MD
simulation trajectories. [OVITO](https://www.ovito.org)\_ and
[VMD](https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd)\_ seem to be the most
popular choices among them.

The [dump image](dump_image) and [dump movie](dump_image) styles can
output internally rendered images or convert them to a movie during the
MD run.

Programs included with LAMMPS as auxiliary tools can convert between
LAMMPS format files and other formats. See the [Tools](Tools) page for
details. These are rarely needed these days.