Section 14.2.2.3. Decision making and structure solution

The process of structure solution can be thought of largely as a decision-making process. In the early stages of solution, a crystallographer must choose which of several potential trial solutions may be worth pursuing. At a later stage, the crystallographer must choose which peaks in a heavy-atom difference Fourier are to be included in the heavy-atom model, and which hand of the solution is correct. At a final stage, the crystallographer must decide whether the solution process is complete and which of the possible heavy-atom models is the best. The most important feature of the Solve software is the use of a consistent scoring algorithm as the basis for making all these decisions.