>
>
> >I am planning to purchase a powder diffraction search-match program.
> >Presently I have tested a demo version of Crystallographica only. I would
> >sincerely appreciate your comments on what you experienced.
> >Best Regards Natale Perchiazzi
>
> Could you summarize the answers ? Thanks
>
> Armel Le Bail
>
> PS - Most of us probably have no choice than to use the
> search-match software sold with the last-bought powder diffractometer.
> So I use EVA from Socabim, and it "search-matches" quite well and fast,
> provided the data is into PDF-2. Doing a serious comparison between
> commercial programs would cost a lot... unless a Round Robin is
> organized on the basis of distributed powder patterns of samples (or
> mixtures of samples) to be identified.
There is also a summary of available Search-Match software at:
http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/solution/search-match.htm
(corrections appreciated if anything is out of date information)
The only freeware I know of is Macdiff for Mac by Rainer Petschick
and Portable Logic for UNIX (and maybe Windows?) by Brian Toby.
http://www.geol.uni-erlangen.de/macsoftware/macdiff/MacDiff.html
http://www.ncnr.nist.gov/programs/crystallography/software/logic.html
My experience in Melbourne though when putting two commercial
search-match programs side by side for users to try out themselves:
the users chose the one that was the easiest to use - irrespective
of how "advanced" the search-match algorithm was.
In this case, the Windows program with a very easy to manipulate
GUI (using the Gohner-Garbuskas algorithm) beat a DOS based
program with second/third generation search match capability.
Most commercial vendors would normally have some sort of Demo version
that would allow potential customers to try things out - so it
may be worth asking about this(?).
Even though some programs might be better at suggesting accurate
matches than others - it is still up to the user to decide.
The page Armel mentions at http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/poster-talks/phase-id-1999/
tries to give some hints - though it also mentions that blindly
pressing buttons can put you into potential mayhem(?).
e.g., Franklinite vs Magnetite?
Lachlan.
--
Lachlan M. D. Cranswick
Collaborative Computational Project No 14 (CCP14)
for Single Crystal and Powder Diffraction
Daresbury Laboratory, Warrington, WA4 4AD U.K
Tel: +44-1925-603703 Fax: +44-1925-603124
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ext: 3703 Room C14
http://www.ccp14.ac.uk
