The simplified description of molecular diffraction as interference between atomic scatterers hints at an important property of electron diffraction: even though molecules are, in reality, not just geometrical assemblies of isolated atoms, they can be treated as such to a very good approximation. This is the basis of the so-called independent atom model (IAM) in electron diffraction. Additionally, in contrast to spectroscopic methods, elastic scattering is a weak interaction leaving the molecule in its original state. Thus, gas-phase diffraction patterns can be simulated at extremely low computational cost compared to simulations of spectroscopic signatures and based on a molecular geometry and tabulated atomic scattering factors (99; 105). An example of an IAM simulation of the molecular interference term of CHD is shown in Fig. (blue). Its sinusoidal transform is compared to the experimental PDF of CHD in Fig. . The low level of sensitivity to the explicit electronic structure inherent in the IAM description (with some notable exceptions (106; 107)) allows for the IAM simulation of structural information from photoexcited molecules with the same accuracy, largely removing additional uncertainties in the description of the observable on top of the molecular dynamics.