4.2 Displaying Multiple Structures Simultaneously

Mercury allows two or more structures to be displayed simultaneously. The ability to display multiple crystal structures is only available to registered CSD System subscribers. For further information on obtaining the CSD please see:

http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/contact/obtaining_products/

To display multiple crystal structures, switch on the Multiple Structures tick box located under the list of structures on the right hand side of the main Mercury window. Select the structures you wish to display by clicking on their corresponding identifiers within the list. Each structure selected for viewing will be shown in the display area.

Various options are available for controlling the display of multiple structures. To access these, hit the Structures... button located under the list of structures on the right hand side of the main Mercury window. This will open the Multiple Structures dialogue:

This dialogue lists all the structures currently being displayed. Within this window you can:

Control whether movable structures will rotate around a single global rotation centre, or whether structures individually rotate around their own rotation centre. Select either the Global rotation centre or Local rotation centre radio button to set the required behaviour.

Remove individual structures from the display. Hit the Delete button next to the structure you wish to remove.

Choose to make individual structures Visible. Turning this off is useful for hiding particular structures.

Choose to make individual structures Active. Subsequent actions e.g. packing will be applied to active structures only.

Choose to make individual structures Movable. Subsequent rotation and translation of the display will be applied to movable structures only.

Set the colour of individual structures by selecting the required option from the appropriate Colour pull-down menu.