Commission on Crystallographic Computing

Small molecules: the PLATON toolbox

Anthony (Ton) L. Spek
National Single Crystal Service facility, Utrecht University, NL

The PLATON toolbox consists of a large number of 'small molecule' tools that were either adapted from exciting software or developed from scratch and collected into a single Fortran based source. The program has a history of about 30 years and is developed similar to SHELX as a single author program in the context of the needs of our national small molecule service facility. Both UNIX (Linux) and MS-Windows implementations are available.

PLATON started as a geometry analysis and graphics program. Over time tools for the analysis for missed symmetry (ADDSYM), twinning (TwinRotMat), the handling of disordered solvents (SQUEEZE), ab-initio structure solution on the basis of the charge flipping approach (FLIPPER) etc. were integrated. The UNIX version of PLATON also contains a complete automatic structure determination package (SYSTEM-S). PLATON is used as part of the Web-based IUCr PLATON/CHECKCIF structure validation tool.

The talk will present details of some of the implemented algorithms and the tutorials will include examples of applications of the various tools.


These pages are maintained by the Commission Last updated: 15 Oct 2021