Michael Fischer, known as @ZeoliteMiFi on twitter, created a mock .cif file that allows visualisation of the periodic table in a structure visualisation software like VESTA. With that, one can see at one glance how different elements are shown.
He kindly provided the CIF and you can download it here. May be reused for all purposes, but no warranty is given. Comments and corrections should be send to: michael.fischer@uni-bremen.de.
Three examples in VESTA:
1. Default settings, vdW radii + labels
2. Default settings, atomic radii, no labels
3. Default settings, ionic radii, no labels
This should work equally well with other software packages. The main issue might be an artificial generation of “bonds” between neighbouring elements that one should suppress in the settings (which is straightforward in VESTA).
This is how it looks in Mercury applying the “Ball-and-Stick” style (bond radius set to zero):
The Fascination of Crystals and Symmetry 