New Diamond Version 4.1.0

November 7, 2015

A minor update 4.1.0 of "Diamond", our software for crystal and molecular structure visualization, has just become available. In this new version several improvements have been made as well as several bugs have been fixed.

• Acceleration of structure picture drawing and anti-aliasing: Use the "Rendering" page of the "Tools"/"Options" dialog to define the "resolution", i.e. the number of stacks and slices to be used when rendering atom, ellipsoid, bond objects. The resolution can temporarily be reduced (and the frame rate increased) when rotating or shifting in tracking or grab mode. Edges of objects can become smoother by anti-aliasing, too.
• New command "Edit"/"Selection Filter...": Choose object types (atoms, bonds, labels, etc.) that are to be considered when you click on objects in the structure picture. This reduces inadvertent matching of wrong objects.
• Enhanced construction of polyhedra from atoms and/or bonds: "Build"/"Polyhedra"/"Construct Polyhedron..." now offers additional options if and how to consider bonds between the ligand atoms to be considered as polygon edges.
• "Atom Group Designs" dialog has been extended to "Atom Group and Site Designs" dialog, where you now can assign designs also to individual atom sites.
• "Reset defaults" buttons added to "Objects/Legend" and "Objects/Coordinate System" dialog.
• The following bugs have been resolved:
  • Diamond could hang up when there are no neighbouring atoms at all in a 10 Angstroem sized sphere around an atom site.
  • "Edit"/"Lasso Selection" could leave markers in the structure picture when terminating with Escape.
  • Some spin (up/down) buttons not working correctly in "Atom [Group and Site] Designs" dialog.
  • "Bond and Contact Designs" dialog: "Fragmentation" input field could contain "255" (rather than blank) as undefined/ambiguous value.
  • "Tools"/"Neighbourhood Preview" incorrectly also considered bond objects as centers.
  • "Build/Connectivity" dialog: No histogram at all was drawn, if there was no distance within the currently visible range.
  • Several more minor bugs, see "Known Bugs" page.

Diamond version 4 customers should use the online update function (menu "Help/Online update") or check the "Diamond Version 4 Update Page" for alternative update choices.

Diamond Demo Version and Information

If you would like to learn more about Diamond, please visit the corresponding web page where you can also download a demonstration version free-of-charge.