Welcome to the Western Michigan University Rasmol and Chime Site!

The first thing a visiter to this site should do is bookmark it now with Ctrl+D (Mac users use the apple key+D) or by using the bookmark button on your browser.  Later on you will be directed to other sites and bookmarking this page now will help you to find your way back easily.

This site has been created to allow students an opportunity to use software that makes visualizing molecular structures as simple as clicking a mouse.  This ability to actually see how the various atoms are spatially arranged within complex molecules can give students insight into many of the large macromolecules found in biological systems, proteins for example, that otherwise might remain as nothing more than fuzzy, if not mystifying, textbook abstractions.

Included in this site are basic tutorials on how to use both Rasmol and Chime, two programs for exploring the 3-D structure of molecules. These tutorials will walk you through how to download and install, as well as the basics of how to use, each of these programs. This site also includes three class specific tutorials that cover more advanced options for both programs, along with data files, that will be used with each of the three classes, 153, 355, and 550/552.

Below is a brief descriptions of each of the 3-D modeling programs used at this site:

RasMol:

Rasmol is free software for looking at molecular structures.  It can be installed and used on either a Windows or Macintosh computer.  RasMol can rotate, show a 3-D image, as well as give a wealth of other information about a molecule from it's pull down menu's or it's command line window, for any molecule for which it has data files on. To use RasMol you must download and install the program to your computer, and then download a free PDB data file for each molecule that you want to view. Click here to go to the Rasmol getting started tutorial.

Chime:

Like RasMol, Chime can show the 3-D structure of molecules, large and small. But unlike RasMol, it shows the molecules inside a web page eliminating the need to download PDB files. Unfortunately, this means only the molecules written into the page can be viewed. To use chime you need to have the Netscape browser installed, and you will also need the free chime plug-in. Click here to go to the Chime getting started tutorial.

This site was created by Robert Findley and Daryl Findley. Send questions, comments, and problems to [email protected].
Inspiration and information were borrowed in part from the excellent Rasmol and Chime site by Eric Martz from umass.