Introduction

The GDIS interface is divided into several sections. Current projects, including associated structures and data are listed in the left pane. Next to each item is a small icon which indicates the type of object - such as project, crystal unit cell, surface, polymer, XRD graph, and others. Clicking on the name will select this as the currently active object - which will then have its data rendered in the main window to the right. You will also notice that the area immediately below the list will change (revealing more information and/or options) depending on the type of object you have currently selected.

Also, at the bottom of the main display panel, there is a list of active and queued tasks that GDIS is working on in the background. In the current implementation, only one background task is executed at a time - although many can be queued and will automatically be run when prior tasks complete.

Basic Interaction

GDIS was designed with a three button mouse in mind.

Left button

The left button is used to create selections of subsets within the model. This can be achieved by clicking on atoms, in which case some information will appear in the selection properties box in the model content pane. If the left button is held and the mouse is dragged, then a selection box will be drawn. When the mouse button is released, all atoms in the box become part of the selection. Clicking on an empty part of the graphical display will clear the selection. If the SHIFT key is held then atoms may be appended to an existing selection. Selected atoms can be deleted by pressing the DELETE key or through the Edit->Delete menu option. Selected atoms can be cut and pasted into other models, hidden, or have their colour modified by employing the appropriate option in the Edit menu. The default selection mode is single atoms. This can be changed using the pulldown in the bottom left hand corner of the interface. The pulldown can be used to change to a number of alternate selection modes. The operation of these modes should be self-evident, with the possible exception of the fragment mode. In this selection mode, two atoms that are bonded should be clicked on. When this is done, GDIS will select the molecular fragment that is connected to these atoms. The direction of the fragment is decided by the order in which the first two atoms are selected.

Middle button

The default action when the middle button is held and the mouse moved is to translate the model as a whole. Note that holding down the CONTROL key will result in only the selected atoms of the model being translated. Also, if the SHIFT button is pressed, this will transform the mouse motion into a scaling operation.

Right mouse button

Holding down the right mouse button, coupled with mouse motion will rotate the model as a whole. Mouse motion in the x and y direction produces rotation about two of the three spatial axes. If the SHIFT key is held, then the right mouse button will only rotate around the third axis. In similar fashion to the middle button, if the CONTROL key is held, then only the selected atoms will be rotated.

Scaling the model

Zooming in and out on the model can be accomplished through the Camera section of the View->Display properties dialog. Note that the displayed zoom factor is model independent, and may be used to generate images with identical scaling.