Electronic structure visualization software is surely a fast paced world (relative to a tortoise’s). I reviewed some of the current batch of freeware programs a few weeks ago. Since then I have been using VEND quite a bit. One thing that has been annoying me is the limited control over the contour levels. You can get reasonable results, but it seems a bit sporadic.
I came across STRender yesterday. It’s entirely Java based, so it can work on Unix/XP/OSX which is a real bonus. The frame rate and memory usage is quite good too. It links directly in with VASP charge/spin density files and can quite readily deal with magnetic moment vectors.
On the down side it’s not entirely freeware (the demo doesn’t let you export pictures). €40 for a single user (2 computer) license or €120 for a site license, which is quite fair. The main plus for STRender is that it can hook up directly with POVRAY for some impressive looking ray traced bitmaps. I’ll see if I can get a license at work to test it out in its full glory.