On May 15-29, 2018, Prof. Vladislav Blatov was on mission at the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) in Newtown, Philadelphia, USA.In 2017, Prof. Blatov gave a report at the Spring Meetings of the ICDD. Last year SCTMS researchers successfully implemented a pilot project aimed at computing topological and geometric parameters of crystal structures included in PDF4 database. The database contains the world’s largest and most diverse collection of crystalline materials.
The present mission of Prof. Blatov was dedicated to training of ICDD staff to work with ToposPro and elaborating the strategy of ICDD and SCTMS cooperation. As a result, the agreement of cooperation between ICDD and SCTMS was concluded. According to the agreement, SCTMS staff members will form a group of consultants who will add topological data on crystal structures to ICDD databases. The cooperating parties will prepare a plan of long-term cooperation in the field of software development for the analysis of crystallographic data. The cooperation plan will be put out on approval of ICDD board of directors in September 2018.