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Diamond Version 3: Create POV-Ray scenes

Diamond 3 Features Overview...
Previous: Individual assignment of model...
Next: Geometry enhancements: Planes, lines and more...

Diamond version 3 lets you create POV-Ray scenes. "POV-Ray" stands for "Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer" and is the world's most popular raytracer, a tool for producing high-quality computer graphics. POV-Ray is copyrighted freeware (http://www.povray.org/). The scene is described in a script, the "POV" file, and Diamond 3 gives you a tool to create such POV files from a structure picture, with the help of an assistant that adds background images, textures, pigments, reflections etc. to the scene. The quality of the resulting image will exceed the quality that Diamond offers directly in its rendering mode by far!

So as an example, taking this view of "TA1406" (polymeric potassium diaquahexa-μ-cyanoholmium(III)ruthenium(II) dihydrate, by J. A. Kautz, from Acta Cryst. C59 (2003), pp. i89-i91)...

Original picture from Diamond screen

...we create a POV-Ray scene by adding a sky background and an ocean plane. As you see, unlike Diamond, POV-Ray renders shadows and reflections.

POV-Ray scene with ocean and sky

Another POV-Ray image has been created from "TA1215" ("A mixed tribridging dimolybdenum(I) compound: bis(μ-benzenethiolato-S:S)hexacarbonyl-μ-iodo-dimolybdenum(I)(Mo---Mo)", by G. Pan, B. Zhuang, and J. Chen, from Acta Cryst. C55 (1999), pp. 297-298), with "summer sky" background, a reflecting wood floor, and wooden textures for atoms and bonds.

Another POV-Ray scene made of wood

 


Diamond 3 Features Overview...
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Next: Geometry enhancements: Planes, lines and more...