Mercury is a freeware developed by the

Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation based in Cambridge, England. Its primary activity is the compilation and maintenance of the Cambridge Structural Database, a database of smal ...

, originally designed as a

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

visualization tool. Mercury helps three dimensional visualization of

and assists in drawing and analysis of crystal packing and

intermolecular interactions An intermolecular force (IMF; also secondary force) is the force that mediates interaction between molecules, including the electromagnetic forces of attraction or repulsion which act between atoms and other types of neighbouring particles (e.g. ...

. Current version Mercury can read "

cif CIF, c.i.f. or Cif may refer to: Finance * Climate Investment Funds, in international climate change agreements * Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF), a method of UK government funding for transport infrastructure * Cost, Insurance and Freight, ...

", " .mol", ".mol2", " .pdb", ".res", ".sd" and ".xyz" types of files. Mercury has its own file format with filename extension ".mryx".

History

The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) developed and launched two programs, named ConQuest and Mercury that run under Windows and various types of

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

, including Linux. ConQuest as a search interface to the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), with Fortran code that performs a large variety of tasks, such as

two dimensional A two-dimensional space is a mathematical space with two dimensions, meaning points have two degrees of freedom: their locations can be locally described with two coordinates or they can move in two independent directions. Common two-dimensional s ...

and

three-dimensional In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (''coordinates'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of a point (geometry), poi ...

substructure searching. Mercury introduced as a crystal structure visualizer having the facilities for exploring the

intermolecular An intermolecular force (IMF; also secondary force) is the force that mediates interaction between molecules, including the electromagnetic forces of attraction or repulsion which act between atoms and other types of neighbouring particles (e.g. ...

contacts. The mercury program entirely written in object oriented

C++ C++ (, pronounced "C plus plus" and sometimes abbreviated as CPP or CXX) is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup. First released in 1985 as an extension of the C programmin ...

. The C++ Qt library is used for building the

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

for three-dimensional graphics rendering. The primary objective of the first generation Mercury is to provide the three dimensional viewing of crystal structures with .MOL2, .PDB, .CIF, .MOL file formats. The first version have approximately 2800 users signed on to the Mercury e-mail announcement list. Mercury 2.0 launched in 2008, with additional tools to interpret and compare packing trends in crystal structures. Mercury version released in 2015 and later provides an additional functionality to generate

3D print 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer c ...

. The current Version 4.0 of Mercury developed its visual interface up to a greater extent by comparing with its old versions.

Licence

Mercury is available as a free download software and full version Mercury with more advanced features available with a CSD licence, advanced features are disabled in the absence of such a licence. Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) provides CSD licence to academic institutions.

References

External links

* {{Chemistry software Computational chemistry software

History

Licence

See also

References

External links