# Models and reference data What Rugnux does with outside knowledge — an atomic model, a predicted model, a reference dataset, a cell or a space group you already know — and, decision by decision, what that knowledge is and is not allowed to change. The first section is the short version; the tables after it are the precise one; the rest walks through a run step by step. ```{contents} On this page :local: :depth: 2 ``` ## In short - **Rugnux needs nothing but the images.** Indexing, the cell, the space group, the resolution cut, scaling, merging and the error model all come from the data. Everything on this page is optional. - **A model (`--model`, `--mr`) does not change how your data are processed.** The images are indexed, integrated, scaled and merged the same way with or without it, and the space group is determined before the model is used. The merged intensities and their sigmas in `.mtz` are the same numbers either way. - **The model can only relabel, and only if the data accept it.** It is first tested against copies of itself placed in random orientations. A model that fits no better than those changes nothing at all: the reflection files are byte for byte what a run without a model writes. A model that does fit may change three *labels* in `.mtz`: the **hand** of the space group (P4₁2₁2 against P4₃2₁2, which the intensities cannot tell apart), the **indexing** where the lattice allows two equally valid ones, and the **axes** the files are written on. No intensity is changed, no reflection is added or removed, and no other space group is ever taken. - **A different space group chosen by the model goes to a separate file.** If the model prefers another space group, or a twinned subgroup, that merge is written *beside* the answer as `_mr.mtz`/`.cif`, with the model as placed there. `.mtz` stays the data's own answer. - **A reference dataset (`-z`) and a space group or cell you give (`-S`, `-C`) are different:** they are taken as facts about the crystal. They fix the space group and the cell before processing, so with them the space group is yours, not the data's. - **One exception to "processed the same":** on **serial stills** given `--model` together with `-C` and `-S`, the model is used during integration to choose, crystal by crystal, between the two equally valid indexings — the same job a reference dataset does there (see [Serial stills](#serial-stills-the-one-place-a-model-acts-before-the-merge)). ## Every option that brings in a model or reference data | Option | What you give | What Rugnux uses it for | Can it change `.mtz`? | |---|---|---|---| | *(none)* | — | Everything from the data | — | | `--model ` | An atomic model, PDB or mmCIF, gzipped or not, recognised by content: an experimental structure or a prediction | Validation after the merge (R-work/R-free, CC(model, data), maps, the placed model); a rigid-body placement checked against a null, with molecular replacement where the rigid body does not place it, and straight away for a prediction | Labels only (hand, indexing, axes), and only where the model fits. Other space groups → `_mr.*` | | `--mr ` | The same kinds of model | As `--model`, but molecular replacement straight away, without the rigid body. `--mode mx` only, not together with `--model` | Hand label only. Other space groups → `_mr.*` | | PAE file beside a prediction | `AF--F1-predicted_aligned_error_v.json` next to `AF--F1-model_v.cif` (read automatically, no option) | Cuts the prediction into rigid domains for molecular replacement | No (a domain alone can only confirm the answer's group) | | `-z, --reference ` (`--reference-mtz`) | Merged data of the same crystal form: an MTZ, or a PDB structure-factor mmCIF (`-sf.cif`) | Fixes the space group (in its own setting) and the cell (softly), puts the merge on its axes, resolves the indexing ambiguity, hands over its R-free set, reports CCref on stills. Never a scale anchor | **Yes**: the space group, the axes, the indexing and the free set are the reference's | | `--reference-column