Nomenclature and Visualization Resources

Nomenclature resources help the user to give correct names to chemical structures. 

MDL Information Services, Inc. offers free software downloads at http // www.mdli.com/cgi/dynamic/downloadsect.html7uid= key= id = 1. These include AutoNom Standard (automatic nomenclature), which generates IUPAC chemical names directly from graphical structures created in ISIS/Draw or registered in ISIS/ Base. 

Visualization software allows the user to display molecular structures imported from databases or other software programs. Chime, RasMol, and Protein Explorer programs are available at the websites listed below for Windows operating PCs and Macintosh PowerPC computers. 

One important technique that users should acquire is the ability to transform two-dimensional stereoviews into three dimensions. The stereoviews may be found in visualization software such as Chime and RasMol. They are also found in journal 

The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB-PDB at http //www.rcsb.org/pdb/) is the online source for X-ray and NMR structural data. Many software programs mentioned in Section 3.12 include the facility to visualize imported data however, two free software programs operate well in this regard. These are RasMol and Chime, described below. 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Molecular Modeling (CMM),part of the Division of Computation Bioscience (DCB/CIT), displays a molecular modeling page at http //cmm.info.nih.gov/modeling/. The CMM software list is available at http //cmm.info.nih.gov/modeling/software.html. 

One important visualization technique that users should acquire is the ability to transform two-dimensional stereoviews into three dimensions. The stereoviews may be found in visualization software such as MDL Chime and RasMol.They are also found in journal articles in Science or Nature and others, especially those describing new biomolecule X-ray crystallographic or NMR solution structures. The following hints for learning to transform the stereoviews come from the extremely helpful website http //www.usm.mame. edu/ rhodes/OHelp/StereoView.html. 

---