Electron Deformation Density map of Dinitramide. By Anthony Martin and Nick Richardson This image was generated using POV-ray on a Macintosh Quadra 950. The image represents an attempt to display 2-d scientific data in such a method that its relationship to a 3-d molecule can be seen. The traditional method used to view an electron deformation density map was to generate contour maps of specific planes and try to verbaly explain the results. This method was improved upon by using the Spyglass suite of software to view slices (and 3-d images) which were color-coded depending on the electron density. This still leaves the problem of how to relate this to the actual molecule that the experiment to measure the electron deformation was performed, a fact that has been bought up in reviews of this work. To answer the concerns, it was decided to turn towards a different method of displaying data - ray-tracing. The image is basically a dinitrimide-ion who's coordinates have been determined by x-ray crystallography, and high precision crystallographic experimental methods were employed to generate the electron deformation data set. This data set was processed by the Spyglass suite of applications, which was used to generate a gif image in the N1-N2-N3 plane. This gif was mapped onto a thin box, then made partially transparent. The resulting image shows clearly areas of high electron density (the red areas), which are along bond axies and where lone-pairs are, the blue areas represent areas of electron depleted areas. The dinitramide ion is a new anion, it consists of three nitrogen (jade) atoms and four oxygen (pink alabaster) atoms. It has a -1 charge overall, with each spere representing 0.2 Angstroms (1 Angstrom=1e-10 meters), with the plane being a 6 Angstrom by 6 Angstrom slice. All experimental work was performed by Anthony Martin at the chemistry department of the University of Toledo, ray-tracing by Nick Richardson also at the chemistry department of the University of Toledo.