3D crystal structures in VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) may be generated from a variety of standard crystallographic formats using xtal-3d an application developed at ILL by Marcus Hewat using the CCSL Cambridge Crystallographic Subroutine Library (P.J. Brown and J. Matthewman). They can be viewed and manipulated in 3D on all types of computer using a VRML viewer. VRML is therefore an ideal cross-platform format for visualising 3D crystal stuctures.
Hewlett-Packard have their own VRML Model Viewer. An excellent free viewer for all platforms (UNIX, PC and soon Macintosh) is VRweb from the University of Graz (Austria) using the Mesa openGL 'clone'. VRweb will display in 3D even on X-terminals !
VRML originated from Silicon Graphics'Inventor format, and the SGI VRML viewer WebSpace can be downloaded from USA or Europe. Webspace interfaces to the SGI version of Netscape from USA or Europe . Since VRML is a subset of SGI Inventor, you can also use the latest version of the SGI Inventor viewer (ivview) which is automatically downloaded with WebSpace.
The very latest VRML viewer for SGI and MS-Windows is SGI's plug-in, which on a PC is as fast as Netscape's live3D, with the superior rendering quality of VRweb. It is also the first viewer to support the VRML-2 standard (which is not yet needed by xtal-3d).
Complete information about VRML viewers can be obtained from the VRML repository.
Please email me at
hewat@ill.fr if you have any comments. Feedback is always welcome !