Subject: Viewmol 2.2 has been released.

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:04:16 +0100

What is Viewmol ?
Viewmol is a graphical front end for computational chemistry programs.
It is able to graphically aid in the generation of molecular structures for
computations and to visualize their results. The program's capabilities
include:
- Building and editing of molecules
- Visualization of the geometry of a molecule
- Tracing of a geometry optimization or a MD trajectory
- Animation of normal vibrations or to show them as arrows
- Drawing of IR, Raman, and inelastic neutron scattering spectra
- Drawing of an MO energy level or density of states diagram
- Drawing of basis functions, molecular orbitals, and electron densities
- Display of forces acting on each atom in a certain configuration
- Drawings generated by Viewmol can be saved as TIFF, HPGL, or
  PostScript files
- Animations of normal modes can be converted to a video file (MPEG),
  e. g. for inclusion into World Wide Web documents (requires additional
  programs available on the Internet)
- Interface to the freeware ray tracing program Rayshade (input
  file generation and use of Rayshade from within Viewmol)
- Input and output in a variety of formats, new formats can be added
  easily by the user
At present Viewmol includes input filters for Discover, DMol/DSolid/DMol3,
Gaussian 9x, Gulp, Mopac, and Turbomole outputs as well as for PDB files.
Structures can be saved as MSI car-files, MDL files, and Turbomole
coordinate files. Viewmol's file format has been added to Babel so that
Babel can serve as an input as well as an output filter for coordinates
making all formats Babel can handle accessible by Viewmol.

What is new in version 2.2 ?
- Molecule building and editing capabilities
- More than one molecule can be handled at once
- Automatic file type recognition
- Standard file selection dialog can be used to select files
  to load in addition to the old command line oriented mode
- Periodic systems can be enlarged by adding more unit cells
- Automatic recognition of hydrogen bonds
- Improved drawing of isosurfaces
- Capability to read Mopac outputs
- Gaussian input filter extended to handle Gaussian98 outputs
- Configuration dialog for selecting helper applications and
  language (no need to edit resource files anymore)
- Viewmol file format added to Babel (if anybody knows where
  to submitted patches for Babel, please tell me)
- a lot of bug fixes

What operating systems does Viewmol run on ?
Viewmol was developed using Linux, but it was also ported (or better
recompiled) on a number of other operating systems. Currently, pre-
compiled binaries are available for Linux (dynamically linked with
Lesstif, statically linked with Motif), AIX, and IRIX. The program
should also run on OSF1 and HP-UX, but due to a lack of direct access
to such hardware I couldn't test it.

Where do I get Viewmol ?
Viewmol can be downloaded from the Computational Chemistry List archive
(USA):
- file://ftp.ccl.net/pub/chemistry/software/SOURCES/C/viewmol
or from Akademische Software Kooperation Karlsruhe (Europe):
- file://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/education/chemistry
The source code and the precompiled binaries for Linux will also be
available from Sunsite (USA) or your friendly neighbourhood mirror:
- file://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/visualization
For the second site it may take a few days before the site
administrators have moved the code to the given location.

Jörg-Rüdiger Hill ([email-masked])