Balls & Sticks

Balls & Sticks is a lightweight software application whose purpose is to help you generate a crystal structure as a 3D animated model by providing information about atom coordinates or importing data from CIF files.

Portable tool

This is a portable program. You can store it on USB flash drives or other portable devices to have it with you all the time. In addition, you may run it without administrative privileges.
Gaining access to its features requires only opening the executable file because there’s no setup included in the process. It does not write entries to your Windows registry and leave other configuration files on the target PC. It actually saves the settings data on the storage device. Getting rid of it implies a simple deletion task of the files that you have downloaded from the Internet.

Interacting with the GUI

Balls & Sticks reveals a well-structured suite of features. However, you still need to take some time and experiment with the built-in parameters in order to get an idea about how the program works. You may also appeal to a help manual in case you need further assistance with the configuration settings.

Create crystal structures using various functions

The application offers you the possibility to import crystallographic data from CIF file format or draw and generate a BMP or JPEG picture of a crystal structure in 3D.
What’s more, you can make use of various tools in order to see inside polyhedra via a transparency mode, show only atoms, atoms and bonds, or atoms and polyhedra, reveal all objects (atoms, bonds, polyhedra) in the main window, as well as switch between 3D anaglyph, perspective, and orthographic projection mode.
You can make the app show deleted atoms, enable or disable a color or black & white display mode, rotate the structure to different angles, check out the distance between two atoms, zoom in or out of the structure, create a bond between two atoms, as well as generate a polyhedron.
Balls & Sticks lets you delete objects, edit bonds, remove a family of bonds, change the radius of an object or atom, modify the color and lighting property of an object, store the current state of the tool into a snapshot list in order to reload info with ease, undo or redo your actions, and make use of hotkeys for faster actions.

Final verdict

All things considered, Balls & Sticks comes bundled with a comprehensive suite of features for helping you create 3D images and animations of crystal structure, and is suitable especially for advanced users.