vibe-view command reference¶

Every vibe-view command, grouped by what you are trying to do. The one-line descriptions are the commands’ own, so this page and vibe-view --help cannot drift apart.

Each command takes --help for its full option list; this page names the options worth knowing about and leaves the rest to --help, which is always current.

Note

Which extra do I need? Most of this works on the base install (pip install ./vibe-view). Only two things need more: open, compare, serve and dashboard need the browser stack ([viewer]), and tui needs Textual ([tui]). See Getting started with vibe-view alone for the install itself. Run a command whose extra is missing and vibe-view names the extra and the exact install command.

Look at an archive¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view open QVF_FILES...`	Open one or more `.qvf` files and launch the interactive viewer.	`[viewer]`
`vibe-view tui QVF_FILE`	Open a QVF in the interactive terminal viewer.	`[tui]`
`vibe-view show QVF_FILE`	Print one frame of a QVF to the terminal and exit.	base
`vibe-view desktop FILE`	Launch the vibe-view desktop application (native Electron window).	packaged app
`vibe-view compare QVF_A QVF_B`	Open two `.qvf` files side by side with compare mode enabled.	`[viewer]`
`vibe-view serve DIRECTORY`	Start a web-based QVF file browser for a directory.	`[viewer]`
`vibe-view dashboard PATTERNS...`	Render a grid preview of multiple QVF files.	`[viewer]`

open takes --port, --host, --no-browser, -s/--section to start on a named section, and --auto-compare when you pass several files. show takes the terminal-rendering flags (--size, --mode, --plain, --representation, --color-by, --rotate, --replicate, --isovalue, --frame, --chart, --all, --info); see Terminal mode. dashboard takes --cols, --cell-size and --html.

Render and export¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view capture QVF_FILE`	Render a section to PNG via the headless capture API.	base
`vibe-view animate QVF_FILE`	Render animated sections (trajectory, reaction paths, vibrations, orbitals) to MP4/GIF.	base
`vibe-view batch PATTERNS...`	Render a gallery of PNGs from many `.qvf` files (offscreen).	base
`vibe-view export QVF_FILE`	Export geometry from a `.qvf`.	base
`vibe-view table QVF_FILE`	Dump tabular data (frequencies, charges, MO energies) from a `.qvf`.	base

export writes XYZ, CIF, OBJ, glTF, standalone HTML and JSON via -f. Rendering needs no browser, which is the point: this is the group to reach for in a script, a CI job, or a figure pipeline. If a render fails complaining about a display or a GL context, set PYVISTA_OFF_SCREEN=True.

Inspect, verify, compare¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view info QVF_FILE`	Print detailed metadata and section summary for a `.qvf` file.	base
`vibe-view validate QVF_FILES...`	Validate QVF file integrity: schema, SHA-256 hashes, member presence.	base
`vibe-view diff QVF_A QVF_B`	Compare two `.qvf` files: energy delta, section differences, geometry RMSD.	base
`vibe-view batch-compare QVF_FILES...`	Compare multiple `.qvf` files: energies, RMSD, sections.	base
`vibe-view stats DIRECTORY`	Show aggregate statistics for all `.qvf` files in a directory.	base
`vibe-view recent`	Show recently opened QVF files.	base

info --short is a single line per archive, which is what you want in a loop. validate is the one to run before you publish or hand on an archive: it checks every member against the sha256 recorded in the manifest, so a truncated download or a corrupted transfer is caught rather than half-rendered. diff and batch-compare both take --json for scripting.

Transform archives¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view slice QVF_FILE`	Extract a subset of sections into a new `.qvf` file.	base
`vibe-view merge QVF_FILES...`	Combine sections from multiple `.qvf` files into one archive.	base
`vibe-view supercell QVF_FILE`	Build a supercell by replicating the unit cell Nx x Ny x Nz times.	base
`vibe-view h-add QVF_FILE`	Add hydrogen atoms to saturate all open valences.	base

slice is how you make a big archive small enough to email: keep the structure and the one section your colleague needs and drop the volumetric data. h-add writes <stem>_h.qvf unless you pass -o.

Work with the queue¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view from-vq JOB_IDS...`	Fetch job outputs from vq and open their `.qvf` files in vibe-view.	`[viewer]`, `vq`
`vibe-view vq-features [FEATURE]`	Show what vibe-qc needs to produce for specific visualizations.	base
`vibe-view quickstart`	Run a demo calculation and open it in vibe-view, the fastest path to a 3D molecule.	`vibeqc`

vq-features answers the question that comes up constantly when a panel is empty: what did the calculation have to write for this to render? Run it with no argument for the list, or name a feature. quickstart runs a real calculation, so unlike everything else on this page it needs vibe-qc installed; see the vq Job Manager for the same loop inside the viewer.

Setup and self-check¶

Command	Does	Needs
`vibe-view examples`	Show example workflows for common tasks.	base
`vibe-view config`	Manage vibe-view configuration.	base
`vibe-view capture-selftest`	Validate that headless PyVista capture can render a nonblank image.	base

capture-selftest is the first thing to run on a new headless machine: it answers whether the offscreen renderer works at all, separately from whether your archive is fine. A blank PNG from capture on a server usually means the GL stack, not the data. On success it prints the pyvista and VTK versions it rendered with; -o FILE keeps the test PNG instead of discarding it, and --size WxH sets its resolution.