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Extended solids ​

Molecular-fragment thinking breaks down for ionic and framework structures — there, the unit cell is the natural display unit. The cell symmetry modes draw the full unit cell with crystallographic axis arrows; fluorite (CaF₂) is shown here. Typical applications: teaching solid-state chemistry, visualizing inorganic and framework materials.

Asymmetric unit only:
Full unit cell:

Reproduce it ​

html
<cifview-widget
    src="CaF2.cif"
    symmetry-mode="cell"
    options='{"cell": {"boxColor": "#000000", "boxOpacity": 0.8}}'>
</cifview-widget>
js
import { CIF, CrystalStructure, CrystalViewer, SymmetryGrower } from 'cifvis';

const viewer = new CrystalViewer(container, { symmetryMode: 'cell' });
await viewer.loadCIF(cifText);

// Or grow the structure without any viewer, for batch tooling:
const structure = CrystalStructure.fromCIF(new CIF(cifText).getBlock(0));
const grown = new SymmetryGrower('cell').apply(structure);
console.log(grown.atoms.length);

Atoms on the cell border ​

By default the cell modes use a packing cutoff of 1.0: the canonical unit cell, where every atom has a single, Z-correct copy in [0, 1). Raising the cutoff slightly (e.g. 1.001) additionally duplicates atoms that sit within that margin of a low cell face — 0, an edge, or a corner — onto the matching high face(s), for a "closed" packing diagram with atoms visible on every side of the box. Bonds are added only when a copied endpoint reproduces the reported bond length, so wrapped across-cell lines are not drawn. In fragment-cell mode, the same cutoff adds complete covalently connected fragments whose centroids enter the extended box rather than individual near-face atoms. Z is no longer exact once extra copies are included.

html
<cifview-widget
    src="CaF2.cif"
    symmetry-mode="cell"
    options='{"packingCutoff": 1.001}'>
</cifview-widget>
js
const viewer = new CrystalViewer(container, { symmetryMode: 'cell', packingCutoff: 1.001 });

// Or directly: new SymmetryGrower('cell', 1.001).apply(structure);