[theJoy]

hello, i am a student who's in desperate need of an application that allows me to build and examine organic molecules . . . the ones we use in class are Windows only (my textbook came with one actually) and there were none for Macs that my Prof. could recommend. i downloaded iMol & CrystMol and neither were really what i was looking for. any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Tantrum]

Try this one...i'm taking O chem this spring semester and i order this :http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyT...471128333.html

I dunno if that's what you need though.

[Ozmodiar]

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte067k/xdrawchem/
That one draws them in 2D.

http://www.eskimo.com/%7Epristine/biology.html
Lots of cool apps there if you have classic installed.

http://www.macinchem.fsnet.co.uk/macosx.htm
I'd also look at this site.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by theJoy:
hello, i am a student who's in desperate need of an application that allows me to build and examine organic molecules . . . the ones we use in class are Windows only (my textbook came with one actually) and there were none for Macs that my Prof. could recommend. i downloaded iMol & CrystMol and neither were really what i was looking for. any suggestions would be appreciated.

For Unix, I have used rasmol. Open Source, runs on OS X as well as (at least) AIX and Linux.

[boots]

There is also Ghemical, available through fink as part of the gnome package.


This one will allow you to do simple calculations and minimizations as well.

The standard is chemdraw, and chem3d for examining 3d structures. Many text books come with a free version of chem3d that lets you open up files and look at molecules. No building, though.

[mike one]

Originally posted by boots:
There is also Ghemical, available through fink as part of the gnome package.

The standard is chemdraw, and chem3d for examining 3d structures. Many text books come with a free version of chem3d that lets you open up files and look at molecules. No building, though.

you may be able to download demo versions of chemdraw and chem3d, i experimented with Xdrawchem the other day b/c chemdraw is way buggy, but Xdrawchem is much much worse.

chemdraw demos are only good for 2 weeks aww crap.
http://chemdraw.com

the best thing you could do, is buy a $30 model kit from amazon or your bookstore, ball and sticks. seriously, that is the easiest and one of the best ways to study structures. having them in your hands, and manipulating them is perfect!
I'm in my 5th year of graduate school and i still use those models all the time, even when I have a $1000 copy of macSpartan (high end 3D modelling program) to play with, the stick models come in handy all the time.
(message me for recommendations, i've used at least 5 different model kits over the past 8 years)

to actually draw structures on the computer to insert into documents, try some of the suggestions above, Xdrawchem is free and will work for that purpose. Pymol, Rasmol, and imol are the wrong tools for the job, they are just for visualizing compounds, not building them.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by mike one:
you may be able to download demo versions of chemdraw and chem3d, i experimented with Xdrawchem the other day b/c chemdraw is way buggy, but Xdrawchem is much much worse.

chemdraw demos are only good for 2 weeks aww crap.
http://chemdraw.com

the best thing you could do, is buy a $30 model kit from amazon or your bookstore, ball and sticks. seriously, that is the easiest and one of the best ways to study structures. having them in your hands, and manipulating them is perfect!
I'm in my 5th year of graduate school and i still use those models all the time, even when I have a $1000 copy of macSpartan (high end 3D modelling program) to play with, the stick models come in handy all the time.
(message me for recommendations, i've used at least 5 different model kits over the past 8 years)

to actually draw structures on the computer to insert into documents, try some of the suggestions above, Xdrawchem is free and will work for that purpose. Pymol, Rasmol, and imol are the wrong tools for the job, they are just for visualizing compounds, not building them.

I used VASP (an ab initio DFT package) for the positions and fed the output file to rasmol.

Depends on what you do.

[boots]

You might check to see if your school has a site license for the ChemOffice suite from cambridge software. If so, you can get a valid serial number and download the software. All you need is a valid email address with the school's domain.

Worth looking into.