Helper Applications and Plug-Ins
[ Configure Your Browser ] [ Structure Viewers ] [ Movie Viewers ]
Configure Your Browser
In order to view and rotate the structures available at this Web site, you need a structure viewer, and you need a movie viewer in order to see the movies. In addition, you need to tell your browser software that it should run the appropriate viewer (or application) when you download the software. We recommend that you use the Netscape Navigator 3.01 as a browser.
Structure Viewers
To view the structures of molecules on the screen and rotate them, you need either a helper application or a plug-in. A plug-in provides greater flexibility.
- RasMol by Roger A. Sayle, Ph.D., Glaxo Research and Development, and the University of Edinburgh. The program is available for Macintosh ("RasMac"), Windows, and other platforms. It provides many display options through menus and through a command line window. You may download RasMol from a site maintained at the University of Massachusetts.
- MacMolecule2 Lite from Molecular Ventures, Inc. This program is available for Macintosh and Windows (PCMolecule@ Lite) platforms. The graphic display in this program is more elegant than for RasMol, but the other features are more limited. A more powerful version is available for a modest price. You may download MacMolecule2 Lite directly from Molecular Ventures.
Helper Applications
Two freeware programs do an excellent job of displaying molecules and crystal structures from PDB files as provided on the LVC Molecular Modeling page:
Plug-Ins
For plug-in use Chime from MDL, also available for Macintosh, Windows, and other platforms.
Movie Viewers
Molecular movies can be used as a teaching tool to visually demonstrate to students what is happening on the molecular level. These movies were made with the program Adobe Premiere using images generated by Cache Scientific Software, and the files are available in both raw and compressed format. The raw files are larger but need no decoding after they are downloaded. The smaller size of the compressed files makes them faster to download, but they must be uncompressed before they can be displayed by a movie viewer.
Uncompress the files using StuffIt Expander or comparable software. If you do not have this program, you may download a (free) copy from the home page of Alladin Systems.
The program Movie Player for the Macintosh can be found on the System 7.5 CD, and it plays these movies well.
For either the Macintosh or Windows, you may download QuickTimeVR player from a site maintained by Apple.
