AN OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH TOWARDS A CRYSTAL SYMMETRY ENVIRONMENT

A descriptive summary of incommensurately modulated crystals and quasi crystals, like the International Tables for Crystallography for ordina ry crystals, is not feasible. Advanced software is needed to reveal th e characteristics of and the relations between the superspace groups, which describe these crystal types. This paper starts with an overview of the mathematical background and the algorithms involved. The use o f object oriented programming, the implementation/design technique use d in the crystal symmetry environment, is discussed and compared to a more traditional approach.