Rudolf Hundt was born in Grevenbroich, Germany, in 1941. After four years of primary education he attended the high school in his town, but soon moved to the High School of Mathematics and Science in Neuss where he graduated in 1962. After spending two years in military service, he studied mathematics and chemistry for teachers. During his studies, he learned computer programming, although this was not a mandatory subject. In 1969, he got his teaching degree in chemistry and subsequently, in 1974, he received his doctorate in the same field. After graduation, he started working as an assistant lecturer at the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelm-university of Bonn. During this time, besides supervising various teacher internships, he developed software in the field of crystallography. This software includes programs for structural analysis of crystals, significant contributions to the CRYSTIN code for the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database ICSD, and the structure visualization and analysis program KPLOT which has grown out of many years of experience in dealing with problems in crystallography. Since 2006 Rudolf Hundt has been retired, but he continues working on further developments in KPLOT
KPLOT A Program for Plotting and Analysing Crystal Structures, Version 9
The program KPLOT is used to draw and analyse crystal structures. The approach of the program to
drawing structures is similar that of the program ORTEP. Meanwhile most tasks available with ORTEP
have been integrated. Version 9 has the new feature that two structures can be handled simultaneously.
The pictures created with the program can be treated as simplified “ball and stick” models. The balls are
drawn in projection as circles while the sticks which are supposed to symbolize bonds or indicate coordinations
of atoms are represented as simple lines or double lines (tubes).