Support — Zatom

Last updated: 26 September 2026

Zatom is a crystal- and molecular-structure modeling workbench for iPhone and iPad. This page is where to reach us and where the common questions are answered.

Getting started

• Build a crystal. Open the panel at the bottom left, choose Crystal, then pick a preset under Presets — or type lattice constants directly under Lattice System.
• Build a molecule. Switch the panel to Molecule. Load one from the built-in library, search PubChem by name or CID, import a file, or draw it in 2D with Draw and send it to 3D.
• Import a file. CIF, XYZ, extXYZ, MOL, PDB, CUB, Cube and Molden are accepted. Use Upload in the Crystal panel or File Import in the Molecule panel.

Gestures

• One finger drags to rotate the view.
• Two fingers pinch to zoom and move together to pan.
• Camera gestures stay available even while a tap-driven tool such as Add Atom or face selection is active — those tools take the tap, not the view.

Common questions

I switched to HyperStick and the structure looks like one fused solid.

That is what the mode does: it renders bonds as a smooth-minimum surface so neighbouring bonds melt together, and hides the atom spheres. Switch back to Ball & Stick for discrete atoms.

Atoms appear outside the unit cell.

Those are periodic images — the same crystallographic site seen through a lattice translation, drawn so the cell reads as complete. Turn them off with Show All Occupancies in Settings. Tapping an image selects the site it repeats, and the atom count and exports still see each site exactly once.

I optimised the geometry and nothing seemed to happen.

The force field converges in well under a second, and on a structure that is already close to ideal the change is a few hundredths of an angstrom. The button plays a sound and reports the iteration count when it finishes.

The Assistant does not answer.

The Assistant needs a network connection. Modeling itself works fully offline; only the Assistant, PubChem search and Materials Project search require one.

Voice input is not working.

Hold the button to talk and release to send. iOS asks for microphone and speech recognition permission the first time; if you declined, re-enable them in Settings › Zatom. Transcription runs on the device where the language and model support it.

Privacy

Zatom requires no account. Optional online features process data as described in our privacy policy, including Assistant questions and answers and voice input. Assistant question-and-answer records are retained for 7 days; email hi@solrizon.com to request deletion.

Reporting a problem

Email us with the device model, iOS version and Zatom version, what you did, and what happened instead. A screenshot helps. If it involves a specific structure, attaching the CIF or XYZ makes it much faster to reproduce.