Becoming familiar with Chime

Chime is a molecular viewing tool. It allows viewing of molecules on web pages in the same way as constructing a ball and stick model allows viewing of a molecule. This page takes you through some of the basics of using Chime. More advanced information is available from MDL at their web site.

If you have chime installed correctly you should see a box below displaying the structure of the amino acid alanine.

This structure can be manipulated using the mouse:

LEFT mouse:

Alone - Rotates the molecule in the x,y plane as you drag

+ hold shift - Resizes the molecule as you drag (up = smaller, down = larger)

RIGHT mouse:

Alone - Gives the menu selection

+hold shift - Rotates the molecule in the z plane as you drag (left = clockwise, right = anti clockwise)

+hold control - Translates molecule in the x,y plane

Menu

Try a few of the menu commands. In particular view alanine using the different display settings

Right mouse click on the structure, drag to 'Display' then drag across to 'Ball and Stick', 'Sticks', 'Spacefill' (and across to Van der Waals radii). 'Wireframe' returns to the original style.