Editing Symmetry (section)

== Expanding crystallographic symmetry ==
Structures determined by X-ray crystallography are typically deposited as files containing the coordinates for one asymmetric unit (ASU). Knowledge of the symmetry operators that describe how the ASUs are arranged relative to each other allows the arrangement of the crystal lattice to be recreated. PyMOL can read this symmetry information from the input coordinate file and recreate the neigbouring copies of the ASU using symmexp. 

PyMOL's built in symmetry expansion functionality is available as A->generate->symmetry mates for an object or as the [[symexp]] command.

The [[SuperSym]] plugin has additional unit cell and symmetry axis tools.