Visualizing the atomic-scale structure from the output of a calculation is critical, both for understanding your system and disseminating the results. There are many available tools, but some useful suggestions are below.
When you make a PowerPoint with a given structure visualization, you should always provide a atom label color key!
Visualization of Solid-State Systems:
Andrew's Recommendations: For solid-state materials, use VESTA for casual viewing. For more involved editing (e.g. adding adsorbates) and making production-quality figures, use CrystalMaker.
VESTA: Visualizing crystalline systems (e.g. CIF) and volumetric outputs from solid-state DFT calculations
CrystalMaker: Publication-quality figures for solid-state systems. Check out their YouTube channel for tutorials
Virtual NanoLab: Publication-quality figures for solid-state systems and can visualize the outputs of periodic DFT calculations. Can also visualize VASP output data.
Blender: A CGI library. See CGFigures for a tutorial for scientists.
Andrew's Recommendations: For molecular systems, use ChemCraft for casual visualizing/editing. For production-quality figures, use SAMSON.
ChemCraft: Visualizing molecular systems (e.g. XYZ) and the outputs of molecular DFT calculations. The default style is ugly. Prettier templates are below, which you can add to /Chemcraft/schemes3.