Education

RasMol

RasMol is a program that displays the three dimensional structure of molecules. The molecule's structure must be represented as a file in pdb-format, a format used by the world's major databases to describe the three dimensional structure of proteins---but in fact any molecule can be described in this way.

Stick view of DNA	Space-filling view of DNA

The essential feature of the program is that you can rotate the molecule any way you like, and zoom in and out to get a better look! Under Options, there is even a stereo mode so that you can see the molecule in 3-D---but seeing things in this way requires some practice.

If you start the program from the command line, you can in addition select isolated groups of atoms within the larger molecule. See What can you learn about a protein/DNA molecule with RasMol?.

Rasmol Info:

• Rasmol Quick Start
• Rasmol Gallery
• Rasmol Reference Manual

Other information:

• The MathMol Hypermedia Textbook (requires Java)
• The Mathmol Library
• Common Molecules
• Molecule of the Month (PDB)
• Macromolecular Structure Database (small molecules)
• Nucleic Acid Database
• Protein Data Bank UK, EBI and UniProt