Avogadro 2026 Roadmap

General Discussion
1

Following the 2024 and 2025 roadmaps.

Avogadro 2.0

Intended for release on 06 Feb 2026 (i.e., 06.02)

This will mostly concentrate on bug fixes, performance and polish, including a revised plugin system and updated documentation.

  • Improved user documentation (i.e., nearly complete)
  • Updated plugin system & scripting
    • Load on install
    • Improved download / plugin dialog
    • Multiple plugin examples across a range of topics and types
    • Bring back RPC to run local scripts (e.g., open this file and take a screenshot)
  • Bug fixes and polish
  • Further optimization improvements
    • Auto-optimize tool
    • Constraints for distances, angles, & dihedrals
    • Ensuring consistent units in energies / gradients
    • Recording trajectories
    • Possibly simple molecular dynamics
  • Plotting / spectra improvements
    • Improved spectra dialog
    • Band diagrams (beyond Yaehmop)
    • X-ray diffraction
    • Density of states / partial DOS
    • Energy / conformer plot (e.g., multiple conformers, trajectory, etc.)
    • Orbital energy diagram
  • Atom and bond custom properties
    • Example calculator scripts (e.g., NMR signals, polarizabilities, etc.)

Future Plans

We intend to move to a scheduled release plan, with regular releases on 06 Feb (06 / 02 in DDMM format), 02 June (6 / 02 in the US) and 23 October (10/23 in the US - “Mole Day”)

  • Optimization with point group / space group symmetry
  • Improved conformer / trajectory support
    • “Merge frames” into multiple layers
  • Graphics / rendering improvements
    • Support for OpenGL 4.0 core profile
    • Volumetric orbital / charge / electron density shaders
  • Improved builder tools
    • Peptide builder
    • Polymer builder
  • Building / editing features
    • Editing / building with symmetry (e.g., retaining point group and space group)
    • Micro-solvation / solvation “fill”
    • Materials interfaces / heterojunctions
    • Find-and-replace options (e.g., replace 50% of gold atoms within 3 A of the center)
  • Trajectory / dynamics analysis
    • Support for “streaming” large trajectories rather than loading all in memory
    • Timeline view with properties
  • Python / Scripting improvements
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