Modeling Materials with Symmetry. Christoph M. Koelmel, 9685 Scranton Road San Diego, CA 92121

State of the art computer aided modeling of solid materials can assist in all aspects of structure building, visualization, and determination. The efficiency of computational algorithms to tackle these problems increases substantially when symmetry information can be included. For example, the set of atoms within the asymmetric unit is sufficient to describe the complete crystal structure. In consequence, employment of spacegroup symmetry, symmetry visualization and automated symmetry detection form an important component of a state of the art solid state modeling environment. The presentation describes typical application scenarios that exploit symmetry tools and outlines the algorithms behind the recognition of three-dimensional translational and rotational symmetry.