Computer Graphics and Molecular Modeling
T.E. Ferrin and T.E. Klein
Computer Graphics Laboratory
University of California
San Francisco, CA 94143-0446
ABSTRACT
Numerical results are inherent to computational chemistry,
but to the human eye, these numbers alone
are almost incomprehensible.
It is an old cliche that
``a picture is worth a thousand words,''
but nothing could be closer to the truth
in the field of molecular graphics.
The human mind can quickly grasp spatial relationships
when presented in visual form through models,
but if left in their original form,
columns upon columns of numerical data
will have little meaning
to even the most astute scientist.
This chapter in
The Encyclopedia of
Computational Chemistry
describes some of the history of
molecular graphics hardware and software,
and illustrates how the use of
computer graphics and molecular modeling
has done much to advance the field
of computational chemistry
and enlighten the mind of the curious scientist.
tef@cgl.ucsf.edu / June 1998