What to expect from Crystal Impact in 2013

December 18, 2012

Again, 2012 was an extremely busy year: We moved our office to a new location, the new version 2 of "Match!" was released, and the number of orders we received from all around the world reached a new record. Again, we would like to say "thank you" to all of you, both for supporting our products as well as for many fruitful discussions and suggestions that helped to improve our software packages a lot!

In article, we would like to give you a brief outlook what you can expect from Crystal Impact in 2013:

Diamond 4

Within the next weeks, the beta-version of the new Diamond version 4 will finally become available for public download. During the past year, a lot of exciting new features have been implemented, with the "Auto Picture Creator" in front. This tool was the subject of many user suggestions, but was extremely demanding to be implemented with regard to the underlying Diamond philosophy of providing tools for a step-by-step composition of the structural model. Recently, the major break-through in the corresponding logical construction has been achieved, and the new tool is now working as expected.

For details, take a look at the new Diamond 4 developer blog at:

http://www.crystalimpact.com/blogs/diamond/devblog.htm

where also the remaining fascinating improvements in version 4 are presented and explained by the developer, Dr. Klaus Brandenburg.

The final Diamond version 4 will become available in the first half of 2013. With the software being in its final development stage, you can already get a comprehensive overview of all new features, by following the updated Diamond 4 feature tour at:

http://www.crystalimpact.com/diamond/v4preview.htm

Customers who have purchased (or will purchase) the current version 3 of Diamond after August 1, 2010 will be entitled to update to version 4 free-of-charge (only shipping costs must be paid if required).

Pearson's Crystal Data Update and Release 2013/14

We are very happy that the community using the "Pearson's Crystal Data" was not only very large right from the beginning, but is still continuing to grow rapidly every year. In July/August 2013, the next annual release 2013/14 of Pearson's Crystal Data will become available, containing both a bunch of new entries as well as a polished user interface.

Release of Match! 2.1 containing Rietveld functionality using FullProf

The new version 2 of our software package "Match!" for phase identification from powder data has been released in 2012, containing a lot of new features, like the ability to run on OS X, Linux and Windows (and many others). However, one important functionality is still missing: It is not possible yet to perform a Rietveld refinement after you have settled on a set of matching phases. This feature is currently under implementation, based on the well-known Rietveld software "FullProf" (J. Rodriguez-Carvajal, Physica B. (192), 55 ((1993); J. Rodriguez-Carvajal, "Recent Developments of the Program FullProf", in Commission on Powder Diffraction (IUCr) Newsletter (2001), 26, 12-19.).

Although the basic functionality (automatic refinement using the experimental profile data and the phases selected as matching) is already working, we are still running experiments to find the most comfortable setup that at the same time gives the user a maximum amount of control of the FullProf calculation if required. Hence, we cannot give a precise date for the release of the corresponding Match! version 2.1 yet, but we are quite sure that this will take place in 2013. Of course, you will be informed e.g. by e-mail once this new version has become available!