Several Unix scripts are provided here for viewing
CIF data and using Xtal (3.6 or GX) or Rasmol for displaying
molecular structure. One of the scripts couples this facility to
Netscape for the interactive viewing of CIF data downloaded from a
web site.
For Xtal users wanting to print Xtal-generated
postscript files (from PLOTX) on NON-postscript printers, check out
the options of the freeware graphics viewer and conversion software
GhostScript.
PLOTX can also produce XFIG graphics files. Using
XFIG Xtal graphics dumps can be completely customised and exported
into a variety of different formats, including PostScript(TM) and
EPS etc.
The molecular graphics program PIG now generates a
POV-Ray file and attempts to automatically spawn a POV-Ray process,
when requested. The .pov file produced can be run through POV-Ray
as a standalone process to produce .ppm or .tga images of
sufficient resolution for including in publications.
This program is not technically used with Xtal, but
it is an image manipulation program which is incredibly useful for
cropping and adjusting very large POV-Ray molecular graphics
plots.
This program has been found very useful, by some
folks, for taking postcript output by the Xtal plotting program
PLOTX and converting it to EPS for inclusion in program such as
Microsoft(TM) Word
At exit from the Xtal molecular graphics program PIG,
both a PDB file of the current asymmetric unit and an .xyz file of
all viewable atom coordinates are created. Both of these files can
be read and displayed by RasMol which can be used as a basis for
conversion to several other molecular description formats. The .xyz
file in particular is useful for introducing symmetry related atom
sites to the largely symmetry-ignorant RasMol.
