Tools: Summary of responses to "Software for drawing chemical structures?"

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Yesterday, I asked for suggestions on tools to help me draw a 
moderately complex chemical structure. Since the respondents proposed a 
range of tools, each of which will meet different needs, I haven't 
explored each tool and presented a recommendation. I'll do that myself 
later for my own specific needs, with the proviso that YMMV. That being 
said, here's my summary based on a quick glance at the recommended 
resources:

There are many professional-tools available for scientists, not all of 
which are accessible to those who only play one on the Internet. <g> 
For non-professionals (as opposed to unprofessionals <g>), there are 
several alternatives.

Electric Rain provides a range of tools for 3D illustration 
(http://www.erain.com/downloads/trials/), also available in trial 
versions. These don't seem to be directly dedicated to chemistry, but 
may be useful if you want full control and are comfortable with a "roll 
your own" solution. Similarly, the VTK (Visualisation Toolkit, 
http://vtk.org/) also appears powerful, but not a dedicated application 
for chemistry.

Adept Scientific's ChemDraw 
(http://www.adeptscience.co.uk/download/dldcat/22/0/All/ChemDraw.html) 
looks promising, and will run on Mac and Windows.

ADC's Chem Sketch (http://www.acdlabs.com/download/) also looks cool, 
and is free for home/educational use, but a quick look suggests it's 
Windows only. That won't fly on my Mac.

MDL's ISIS/Draw (http://www.mdli.com/downloads/): Didn't take the time 
to register and check whether it'll run on my Mac, but Google suggests 
that it will.

Rasmol and OpenRasmol (http://www.rasmol.org) also appear promising, 
and are open source software that should run on Mac, Windows, and Unix. 
Ditto for PyMol (http://pymol.sourceforge.net/pmimag/screen.html).

The University of Illinois' Visual Molecular Dynamics software 
(http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/research/vmd) seems to be a power tool for real 
molecule geeks, and runs under Mac, Windows, and Unix. ETH Zurich's 
MOLMOL software (http://hugin.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/molmol/) falls 
into the same category, but seems to be Windows/Unix-only. The 
aforementioned geeks may also appreciate the links at the Protein Data 
Bank site <http://www-iphicles.rcsb.org/pdb/software-list.html>.

Clip art may also be an option, but I'll use it as my last resort to 
avoid any copyright issues. If I draw the molecule myself, then barring 
any software licensing agreements to the contrary, copyright won't be 
an issue.

Thanks to Heidi Arnold, Cathy Arthur, Deborah Ausman, Debra Bissantz, 
Sandy Harris, Rob Hodgins, Joe Malin, and Iwan Thomas. If I missed your 
name or didn't include the information you provided in my summary, 
sorry 'bout that... possibly the message never arrived, or I just 
missed it. Feel free to re-post your message for the benefit of others.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content 
delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l 

Doc-To-Help includes a one-click RoboHelp project converter. It's that easy.  Watch the demo at http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40infoinfocus.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.