B3: How to change the appearance.

There are a number of ways of rendering (changing the appearance) a molecule in Chime. The different options are found under the pop-up menu Display. Each of the different options is briefly described below:
  • Wireframe: Draws bonds as one pixel thick lines.
  • Sticks: Similar to Wireframe, just thinker lines.
  • Ball & Stick: Draws Balls on the atoms.
  • Spacefill:
    1. Van der Waals Radii: Best view of the volume occupied by the atoms.
    2. Anisotropic Temperature: Volume based on temperature factors.
  • Backbone: Draws a line through the alpha carbon positions; the best way to see global fold.
  • Ribbons: Draws a thin solid ribbon picture.
  • Strands: Similar to ribbons, but draws strands to represent the ribbon.
  • Cartoons: A thicker type of ribbon drawing with arrowheads on the b-strands indicating chain direction.
As an example, to draw the molecule with Van der Waals Radii you would select the following cascade of menu items from the pop-up menu:
Display¬Spacefill¬Van Der Waals Radii. The menus should appear as shown on the left.