3D Colour Graphics: The Easy Way
CrystalMaker has long featured red/blue stereo graphics, but the new version takes this to a whole new level. Not only are the graphics much bolder, with enhanced dynamic range, but you can now view them in vivid colour!

No longer do you require expensive and bulky "shutter

Click the movie icon to experience some examples in the CrystalMaker 3D Theatre.

glasses" with old-fashioned CRT monitors; neither do you need to blow entire budgets on proprietary "Cave" graphic systems. Instead, you can sit comfortably in front on your modern, low-energy LCD display, with just a lightweight pair of oh-so-inexpensive red/blue stereo spectacles between you and your immersive 3D graphics.

Even better, you can share the experience with your colleagues and students: the wide viewing angles of modern LCD displays allows everyone in the room to experience the effect. And if you want to present your structures in a lecture or convention, you can project them in the usual way - just hand out extra sets of red/blue stereo glasses. Make sure to retrieve them afterwards though: once your audience has experienced the power of our 3D colour graphics, they'll all be clamouring for their own sets, and software to match!

As with all its graphics, the new 3D effects can be exported as high-resolution graphics, or saved as part of the video recording process, as QuickTime movies and Virtual Reality objects (QTVR).

An Out-of-Screen Experience
The Stereo Standout feature lets you move the 3D model back and forth, so that it appears to hover right outside the computer screen. Indeed, the greater your viewing distance from the screen, the more dramatic the results get. This is a great advantage when projecting the graphics: your audience will experience truly spectacular 3D effects. Just warn them to duck when you rotate your long-chain molecule in mid-air right before their eyes...

New Background Gradients Plus Accelerated Graphics
CrystalMaker provides extensive new gradient shading options - including linear, reflected, diamond and radial effects - to give professional-level control to your model display.

Gradients can be scaled and rotated, using the slider controls provided in the Background pane of the Model Options window. In addition, gradient starting- and ending- colours can be chosen independently of the "plain" background colour; the gradient colours can be switched, using a handy new "flip" icon.

Graphics performance is improved too. The new CrystalMaker uses a highly-efficient mechanism for combining high-resolution background graphics (pictures or gradients) with your structural model, allowing faster manipulation than ever before.

You can drag-and-drop a high-resolution graphics file (in any supported format, including PNG, TIFF and JPEG) into the Graphics pane, for use as a background picture. In previous versions of the program, performance could suffer if the background picture was very large. CrystalMaker 8.2 provides performance that is orders of magnitude faster than earlier versions of the software.

Productivity Features
You can now adjust many model and rendering settings in real time - including all reflectance effects, light direction, background shading and much more. Simply hold down the option/alt key as you click a button or adjust a slider control in the Model Options or Rendering Options windows.

For most structures, you can visualize the effects in real time, making it much easier to produce stunning models. For the very largest structures (and CrystalMaker can handle many millions of atoms!), you can preview the effects in the Model and Rendering Options windows, and only need to replot the structure once - when you've completed your adjustments.

Another great productivity feature is the ability to quickly remove thumbnails from the Overview window, simply by dragging them outside their pane. (Previously, a contextual menu command was required here.) Given the importance of Overview thumbnails - particularly when working with multiple structures, in the Files pane, or when assembling multi-structure animations or movies in the Views pane - this deceptively-minor enhancement is all the more useful.

Miscellaneous Changes
CrystalMaker now contains a myriad of miscellaneous improvements. In addition, the major changes are all detailed in greatly-expanded online help sections - and in the new editions of the User's Guides for both Demo and Full versions. New users will also appreciate the range of Red/Blue Colour Stereo structures provided as examples for both the Demo version and the Full version of the program.

CrystalMaker 8.2 for Mac has been designed to support the latest system features on the Mac platform, and we strongly recommend that existing Mac users take advantage of our low-cost upgrade schemes, in order to benefit.