Direct methods and the solution of organic structures from powder data

The electron density map produced after the application of direct methods to powder diffraction data of organic compounds is usually very approximated: some atoms are missed, other atoms are in false positions, some atoms are imperfectly located and the connectivity is quite low. A new procedure able to recover the complete structure model is described. In this procedure, a better interpretation of the map is combined with geometrical techniques for generating new atomic positions. The application of the new procedure may lead to the recovery of the complete crystal structure.