Live Rotation Link
The new versions of CrystalMaker and SingleCrystal (1.1) are designed to work together, allowing live rotation of diffraction patterns and structure, from either program!

To initiate the live link, enable CrystalMaker's Transform > Diffraction Pattern > Live Rotation option, then simulate a diffraction pattern directly from CrystalMaker, using the Transform > Diffraction Pattern > Single Crystal command. Your current structure is now linked with a new window in SingleCrystal.

To stop the live link, simply uncheck the Live Rotation menu command.

New File Formats - with Faster Loading
Three new file formats are now supported: the proprietary text-based format for the old "ATOMS" program, plus the widely-available Elsevier-MDL "Molfile" and "SDfile" formats. All three are auto-detected and loaded by CrystalMaker. As with other multi-structure formats (e.g., PDB and CIF), the individual structures saved in an SDfile are loaded into the same window, and represented by thumbnails in the Views pane.

CrystalMaker 2.1 for Windows also features much faster auto-detection and loading of text files that have recognized file extensions. This improvement is most noticeable with larger, multi-structure files, such as PDB, CIF and SDfile formats.

Window Toolbar
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of CrystalMaker 2.1 is its new window toolbar. This is designed to complement the existing Tools palette, providing handy shortcuts to common operations such as choosing a view direction, toggling the unit cell frame on or off, taking a View snapshot and so on. The toolbar can be customized by right-clicking on it, and the Window > Toolbar submenu gives a choice of small or large icon sizes and the option to display text labels.

Enhanced Plane/Angle Calculations
A new, two-stage algorithm is now used for fitting a lattice plane to a set of selected atoms. The algorithm uses a more-accurate starting model, with a subsequent least-squares refinement process, resulting in more precise and reproducible results, that are largely independent of the starting orientation.

The orientation of the last-displayed lattice plane can now be recalled in the View Direction or Calculate Angle windows. Both of these windows now feature popup menus, to the right of the orientation fields, which include the lattice plane normal.

This new feature streamlines the process of calculating angles between planes, for example, the angle between two benzene rings in a molecular crystal:

Porosity Calculation
The amount of free space in a crystal can now be calculated, using a new Transform > Calculate Porosity command. This command uses the currently-set sphere radii for its calculation, taking into account first-nearest-neighbour sphere overlaps.

Productivity Features
You can now quickly build animations from existing files. Just drag-and-drop a group of CrystalMaker binary files into the same Graphcis window, and each file is display as a thumbnail image in the Views pane of the Overview window. This should facilitate the building of movies or animations, by allowing previously-saved files to be easily added (en masse) to an existing project.

A new Live Update checkbox has been added to the Element Editor window (Edit > Elements), letting users browse different element tables (e.g., via the window's popup menu), and have their structure be immediately replotted.

Miscellaneous Changes
CrystalMaker 2.1 contains a myriad of miscellanous improvements. These include a redesigned lattice plane sheet, more powerful Synchronize command, improved drag-and-drop and much more.