Genomic structural variants (large-scale rearrangements in DNA) are increasingly recognised as drivers of disease risk and genome diversity, yet they are difficult to explore between genome assemblies. The new Alignments viewer on the Ensembl Data Platform allows you to easily browse alignments and structural variants. In this webinar, we will explain how genomic alignments are generated and how structural variants are identified and imported into Ensembl. We will demonstrate the Alignments viewer live, showing you how to compare human reference and alternative assemblies.