DRAWXTL(1)

✨ DRAWXTL(1) — the drawxtl manual, but make it iconic 🦋

okay bestie, we're doing the drawxtl manual page today and I am obsessed 💅🔥 it's a whole crystal-structure drawing program that runs on regular computer hardware, no supercomputer needed 🌸

✨ NAME ✨

drawxtl — display crystal structures on ordinary computer hardware 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

drawxtl [filename]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so drawxtl reads a basic description of a crystal structure 🧚 that includes the unit-cell parameters, the space group, atomic coordinates, thermal parameters or a Fourier map 🌈 and then spits out a geometry object full of the good stuff: polyhedra, planes, lone-pair cones, spheres or ellipsoids, bonds, iso-surface Fourier contours, and the unit-cell boundary ✨

it gives you four forms of graphics and honestly? it's giving variety 😭

• an OpenGL window for immediate viewing 👀
• the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer (POV-RAY) scene language for publication-quality drawings 📸
• the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) for sharing across the Internet 🌐
• Postscript rendering of the OpenGL window, for when you want high-quality output but don't have POV-RAY installed 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

ngl there are no command line options to use 💀 just run it and vibe.

✨ FILES ✨

• ~/.drawxtlrc — per user configuration file 🎀

~/.drawxtlrc

okay so the tutorial about this file and configuring drawxtl lives online at http://home.att.net/~larry.finger/drawxtl/configure.htm 🔗 — go check it out, it's a whole lore dump 🧚

✨ BUGS ✨

⚠️ bestie, listen up: when you open a structures (.str) file, drawxtl needs write permissions in the directory where the file is located. If it doesn't have them, it'll throw an error saying ("Cannot open structures files.") 😭 so make sure the folder is writable before you try 🙈

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

a FAQ and a manual are available online in PDF and HTML format at the DRAWxtl homepage, http://home.att.net/~larry.finger/drawxtl/ 🌸

✨ CITATION ✨

if you use DRAWxtl in your work, please cite it like this 🫶:

Larry W. Finger, Martin Kroeker, and Brian H. Toby, DRAWxtl, an
open-source computer program to produce crystal-structure
drawings, J. Applied Crystallography V40, pp. 188-192, 2007.

an electronic reprint is available online at http://home.att.net/~larry.finger/drawxtl/DRAWxtl_JAC.pdf 📄✨

✨ AUTHORS ✨

the people behind this iconic program 👑

• Larry Finger <larry.finger@lwfinger.net> — author of the program and the former version called "crystal" 💜
• Martin Kroeker <martin@ruby.chemie.uni-freiburg.de> — author of the original POV and VRML modifications 🦋
• Brian Toby <brian.toby@anl.gov> — author of the Fourier-contour code 🌈
• Daniel Leidert <daniel.leidert@wgdd.de> — manpage author for the Debian system 🧚

✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright © 2007-2009 Daniel Leidert 💅

this manual page was written for the Debian system (but anyone can use it) 🫶

permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or (at your option) any later version published by the Free Software Foundation ⭐

on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL 📜

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bestie, that's the whole thing 🎀 drawxtl, version/source 2009/09/27, thanks for hanging out in the crystal lore with me 💖✨ mwah 🌸