Expansion

Lattice Structures

Simple Cubic

Calcium

Fluoride

Sodium

Chloride

About

This is a Unit Cell Visualization simulation designed for use in CHEM 124/127 at Cal Poly. The simulation is designed with student interaction in mind, and provides many features to facilitate student's understanding of concepts relative to lattice structures.

This is an open source project. It is developed in JavaScript, using WebGL for all graphics. The project's code is open source and currently resides on Github.

Contributors

Dr. Zahra Alghoul

Initial project specifications, and Chemistry knowledge. Ensured the simulation's displays were accurate to their real world counterparts. Specified simulation features.

Dr. Zoe Wood

Initial project specifications, and Graphics knowledge. Oversaw Corbin's work on the simulation as his senior project advisor, as well as oversaw Alec's work on the simulation as his final project for CPE 471, Into to Computer Graphics.

Dr. Gregory Scott

Oversaw Jeremy's work and contributed to the dissemination.

Corbin Gruber

Initial project design and implementation. Created initial design for the simulation. Implementation and testing. Created the SC, BCC, and FCC simulations, along with expand, contract, rotations, zooming, translucency, inspection, and layering views. Original control schema involving primarily keystroke controls, along with mouse movement for rotating the views.

Alec James

Updated project design and implementation. Added on Sodium Chloride and Calcium Fluoride along with all features implemented by Corbin in the simple crystal types. Added on coordination number views for the simple crystal types. Updated control schema using buttons and dropdowns for easier navigation and control, as well as improved zooming and expand/contract controls. Added option to change lattice coloring to deactivated, colored fractional atoms (on FCC), and deactivate ions (for NaCl and CaF2).

Jeremy Berchtold

Added HCP lattice with custom controls allowing users to better inspect the cells by showing/hiding some. Improved UI/UX by using fullscreen viewport with overlays. Reduced the number of key commands and replaced with visual controls to improve ease of use. Added expansion slider to control expansion with a visual control. Fixed FCC coloring to show layering. Implemented FCC layering along the 111 plane.

Citation

Corbin Gruber, Alec James, Jeremy T. Berchtold, Zoe J. Wood, Gregory E. Scott, and Zahra Alghoul

Journal of Chemical Education 2020 97 (7), 2020-2024

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b01207