PLATON is a versatile SHELX97 compatible multipurpose crystallographic tool.

Most PLATON features complement those available in the excellent and widely
distributed SHELX97 package for crystal structure determination and refinement.

Historically (1980) PLATON started out as a program for the automated
calculation of derived geometrical data (i.e. bond distances, bond angles and
torsion angles, including su's (esd's)) for structures refined with SHELX76.
Since then, that basic function evolved into an automatic function to calculate
everything of possible interest (both intra- and intermolecular)for a given
structural parameter set (Instruction: CALC).

Over time, various other tools were introduced (Molecular Graphics i.e. PLUTON
& ORTEP, Absorption correction, Data Validation etc.), some of which requiring
a reflection datafile as well.

Several functions in PLATON (e.g. SPGR and EXOR) are there to implement
calculations needed for datareduction, structure determination and refinement
with a program system called 'SYSTEM-S'.

• Pavel V. Solntsev

• platon