Fixed Bulk Composition Sections with VERTEX, POLYGON and MERGE 1) Run build: a) select constrained bulk composition calculations. b) you wish to do the calculations with 2 or 3 additional variables. c) you MUST generate a plot file, for the remainder of these instructions lets assume you name it "PL". d) you MUST constrain all the thermodynamic components, it is not necessary to constrain saturated components but it generally makes more sense. 2) Run Vertex a) Vertex will create a plot file PL which can be plotted with Psvdraw. The plot of this file shows all equilibria that effect the specified bulk composition, but the plot is not easily read, nor is it immediately clear what assemblage corresponds to which field of the diagram (it is possible to determine this with psvdraw, but the process is time consuming). 3) Run Polygon a) the input file is PL, answer no to the discard segments prompt. b) if polygon crashes, try running vertex with lower reliability level (i.e., increase the 2nd number on the 6th line of the computational option file, it may from 1->5). if polygon still crashes try changing the p-t-etc limits. c) if polygon finishes without crashing, first delete any file named bPL (PL is the vertex plot file name), such a file may exist from earlier calculations. d) polygon crates a plot file called pPL and a second file called cPL, a list of the polygon centers. e) you can then run psvdraw entering pPL as the plot file, psvdraw will tell you there is no polygon file, continue anyway. the plot you obtain will show you which area (shaded) of the p-t-etc space has been mapped by vertex and polygon (ideally all). 4) Change the first number (ICOPT) on line 6 from a 1 to a 5 in the computational option file created by build. 5) Rename the original plot file from vertex (PL to, for example, xPL) so that is not overwritten in the next step. 6) Run vertex with the (just edited) computational option file. This step may take a fair amount of time. a) In this cycle vertex may create a new PL file, delete it after vertex finishes. vertex also creates a new print file and file caled bPL. The print file contains details about the assemblages present in each field of the phase diagram section, this may be useful for some purposes. vertex also creates a file called bPL. 7) Run psvdraw with pPL (the file created in step 2) as input. The default plot is not particularly nice the circles tell you where polygon thinks the center of each polygon is. a) Modify the default plot drafting options, by "changing the polygon fill mode" you can make psvdraw use different fills to distinguish phase fields (by variance) or to shade according to density or volatile content. Modify the default assemblage labelling to meet your needs (the default is not legible). Note that if you use a solid fill for the polygons, some polygons may be written over the polygon labels, it is then necessary to move the labels in "front" of the polygons with a graphics editor. USING MERGE: At this stage you have, in principle, a complete labeled phase diagram section, however if one or more solutions are stable many of the polygonals may in fact represent the same phase assemblage (but with different phase compositions). You can use the program MERGE to merge polygons representing the same phase assemblage into larger polygons.