Awesome Symmetry Updates for 2021
Jan 07, 2021
As discussed in my SLiThEr presentation, numerous changes have been introduced to the Symmetry@Otterbein site recently. While these features have been available at the beta site for a while, they have now been introduced to the main site. I plan to write separate posts describing each new feature in more depth soon, but for now, here is a quick list.
Major new features WebGL-based visualizations using NGL: NGL is a web viewer and library for visualizations of molecular systems.
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SLiThEr #12 - Symmetry Resources at Otterbein University
Oct 16, 2020
I will be giving a “guided tour” of the SymOtter website at 4:00pm EST on Monday October 26th as part of the the SLiThEr (Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Rountable) series organized by the VIPEr Community. See the upcoming schedule of roundtable talks (#SLiThEr) in our new #BITeS blog. Our hosts will be @DrDeBack, @natjoneil and @dhjchem.https://t.co/uF2Q1JBX9S
— Flo (@VIPEr_Flo) October 10, 2020 Go to https://www.ionicviper.org/viper-bites/upcoming-slither-schedule for more details and to register.
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More Symmetry@Otterbein Updates
Feb 27, 2020
While many changes are “under the hood”, I wanted to describe some of the more significant updates that have been added recently.
Organization Perhaps the most important update is a change in the organization of the buttons and checkboxes that allow you to animate the symmetry operations and display the symmetry elements of a particular molecule. In previous versions, they were labeled in a way that did not carefully distinguish between symmetry elements and symmetry operations.
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Vertical Symmetry Planes in C4v
Jul 17, 2019
An interesting question was raised by a user about the placement of the vertical symmetry planes for C4v molecules in the Gallery. If we look at the BrF5 example specifically, the question becomes:
should the vertical (σv) planes each pass through four atoms (the bromine atom and three of the fluorine atoms) with the dihedral (σd) planes in between or vice versa?
Two possible orientations of the BrF5 molecule, relative to the x and y axes, are shown in Figure 1.
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Updates to Symmetry@Otterbein Pages
Jun 10, 2019
It has been a long time coming, but the Symmetry@Otterbein pages have been updated to a more modern format using the Angular framework, allowing greater flexibility and more frequent updates.
General Updates The largest design change has been in the organization and style of the symmetry element and symmetry operation controls. Symmetry operations are now organized by class and will, therefore, correspond to the headings of the respective character table. Elements of the same class are grouped together (with the number of elements in parentheses) and an “angle down” icon that will expand to show all the elements in that class.
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Full-Color 3D Prints of Interesting Molecules
Oct 02, 2018
For the 2018 #CSD3DPrint contest, I used Mercury and the CSD Python API to generate the 3D printer files for the [Th(NO3)6]2+ structure with Th symmetry, found in the Symmetry Gallery (CSD entry GOBTAS). The model was then printed on a Prusa multimaterial printer using three different colors and a soluble support. While the process is a bit involved, this should work for virtually any structure and could be adapted to different models of 3D printers.
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Presentation at the CCDC
Sep 12, 2017
While working on sabbatical at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, I gave an overview of the Symmetry@Otterbein website, along with a demonstration of both current and new features. For what it’s worth, a link to the presentation is at https://dhjohnston66.github.io/ccdcpres/.
The pages highlighted in the demo were:
The Symmetry Gallery The Symmetry Challenge Crystallographic Point Groups Space Group Symmetry Enjoy!
Ten Years, One Million Visitors
Apr 07, 2017
Symmetry@Otterbein recently passed one million visitors since tracking began in July 2006.
Figure 1: Visitors per week versus time for Symmetry@Otterbein
Almost 60% of the users come from outside the United States, with thousands of users from India, Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Germany, and many other countries. An increasing fraction of users (approximately 25% in the past year) are using some type of mobile device.
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