Jmol has been developed from Chime, Rasmol etc for organic chemistry, but has recently been extended to draw polyhedrae, which is essential for understanding co-ordination for inorganic structures. Both the ICSD and AMC inorganic/mineralogical databases are experimenting with Jmol for CIF, and you are invited to test the on-line display on eg http://icsd.ill.fr/icsd/index.php?action="">

Click on the Demo option in the log-in box, and then on any of the "Struct.Formula". The structure display should work for most computers and browsers without the need to install any extra applications, except the
java run-time environment, which your browser may already support. You can of course also search for compounds other than copper oxides :-)

The Jmol script tries to find co-ordination polyhedra in the most general case, and does not always display the best possible solution. It is not meant to compete with dedicated structure drawing applications, but it is free :-) and very often works completely automatically. But please tell me if you find systematic problems with particular types of structure, or if you have other suggestions. A brief description with Jmol links is on http://icsd.ill.fr/icsd/help/CIF-help.html

Alan.

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Dr Alan Hewat, ILL Grenoble, FRANCE<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>fax+33.476.20.76.48
+33.476.20.72.13 (.26 Mme Guillermet) http://www.ill.fr/dif/AlanHewat.htm
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