There are a variety of molecular graphics programs available which can be obtained at no cost.  In general the IUMSC tries to support the formats that these public domain packages can read.  Note that many of the programs referred to have restrictions on how they can be used (i.e. no commercial use allowed), and many ask that you register with the author.  Please respect the wishes of the authors!

XMView is the locally written Unix application which will generate publication quality molecular graphics.  Available for Linux (Red Hat distribution) and SGI workstations, the program is the work of John N. Huffman of the AVL. Example

The current version of JaMM is 2.1.  Originally written by John N. Huffman of the AVL, the current versions are nearly all new code written by John C. Bollinger of the IUMSC.

ORTEP (Oak Ridge Thermal Ellipsoid Plot program) is still going strong after over thirty years of use.  

RasMol is one of the most powerful programs available, and is available for a variety of platforms (Windows, Unix, Macintosh).  Chime is a plug-in version of RasMol which allows users to automatically view .pdb files.  While the Chime will satisfy most user needs, the power and versatility of RasMol make it an indispensable tool for those who want to examine molecule structures in detail.  The following links will help you obtain RasMol and Chime.

• North America RasMol home page.  Maintained by  Eric Martz at the University of Mass.
• RasMol Manual.  How to use RasMol(local version).

It is necessary to create a special "obj" input file to describe the polyhedron desired.  For detailed instructions, see the Rotate3D Page.