From: "Tamas Gunda" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:37:41 +1

Dear CCL Members,

The new 3.40 version of the molecule file conversion, manipulation  
and utility program Mol2Mol is now available from CompuChem Ltd
(http://www.compuchem.com/mol2mol.htm).

The current version of Mol2Mol recognizes, and interconverts more 
than 30 different file formats. It contains a simple graphic display 
module to inspect the currently loaded molecule. It possesses some 
chemical intelligence for recognizing detailed atom types, hybridization and   
chemical environments, which is necessary for converting simpler formats (like 
X-ray crystallographic files) to more advanced ones, or when hydrogen atoms 
are automatically to be added to the heavy atoms. 

Most important features:

Batch or many-to-many conversion; 
Conversion of multiple structural files; 
Conversion of proteins to "backbone molecules", Ramachandran plot; 
Manual editing of problematic files; 
Slicing of biopolymers and assemblies to individual molecules; 
Calculation of basic geometrical data: distances, angles, dihedral angles; 
Calculation of atom pyramidalities, angle of rings, distances from least square
planes, ring puckerings; 
Change of bond types, atom types; 
Add or delete hydrogens, structural waters. 

New in Mol2Mol ver 3.40:

 New file formats have been added:
     MXYZ format read and write
     Gamess type Z-matrix and Cartesian (write)
  
 New features in the conversion:
     Support for PDB files containing only the backbone CA atoms;
     Support for PDB files with multiple structures (MODELS);
     New input and output variations have been added to the Cartesian format;
     Conversion of multi-structure files to multi-structure files are 
     supported;
 
 The following formats have been upgraded and refined:
     Insight car
     Sybyl mol2
     Macromodel
     PDB
     CSSR
     Z-matrix input, mainly Gaussian types
 
 POV-Ray files:
     Direct editing options of the povcolor.dat and *.pod include files have 
        been added to the POV-Ray window;
     Support for the gradient fill coloring of the bonds;
     A few more color parameters are available in the povcolor.dat file; 
     Support for the coloring according to atom charges or other atom 
        properties inputted from data files;
     Support for the coloring according to residues, chains, models;
     Semitransparent filling of rings;
     Spline representation of peptide backbones.
     
  Centering of the molecule at chosen atoms is now possible;

  Coloring of the molecule according to models, chains, residues 
     for better visualization (used in the POVRay format too).

For more info see: http://www.compuchem.com/mol2mol.htm
and/or http://dragon.klte.hu/~gundat/mol2mola.htm

Demo version is downloadable.

POV-Ray users may also have a look at: 
http://dragon.klte.hu/~gundat/povraya.htm 
(this link can be slow in the afternoons CET at workdays).