From owner-chemistry@ccl.net Sat Sep  4 12:23:00 2010
From: "Geoffrey Hutchison geoffh,+,pitt.edu" <owner-chemistry-*-server.ccl.net>
To: CCL
Subject: CCL: soft for molecular construction
Message-Id: <-42693-100904122046-6948-4GyjGPRYmQSs2J3RR2gdPQ-*-server.ccl.net>
X-Original-From: Geoffrey Hutchison <geoffh]![pitt.edu>
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Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:20:36 -0400
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Sent to CCL by: Geoffrey Hutchison [geoffh[*]pitt.edu]
> Can anyone recommend me a good *free* software to build up molecules? I would need it to run under Mac
> and deal with large molecules (say hundreds of atoms).


I'm biased, but I think Avogadro http://avogadro.openmolecules.net/ is the best molecule builder and certainly can deal with biomolecules. I develop Avogadro on the Mac, and there are nightly builds of both "stable" and "development" versions:

http://avogadro.openmolecules.net/nightly/mac/

Avogadro for Mac includes support for drag-and-drop of files, double-click in the Finder... all the usual goodies.

Best regards,
-Geoff

P.S. I do like Aten -- I think it's very good for building repeating systems like crystals, nanotubes, solvent for MD, etc.

---
Prof. Geoffrey Hutchison
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
University of Pittsburgh
http://hutchison.chem.pitt.edu/
Office: (412) 648-0492