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Molecules in VRML
General Information - Installation - Use
| The Chemist's Electronic Book of Orbitals Tim Clark and Rainer Koch ISBN 3-540-63726-5 (c) Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999 Published by Springer-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG P.O. Box 105280 D-69042 Heidelberg Germany * General Information * Installation * Use * Masthead * Contact General Information: The Chemist's Electronic Book of Orbitals introduces students and researchers to the world of molecular orbitals using three-dimensional VRML representations. The electronic components of the book are delivered on the accompanying CD-ROM. The printed part gives a short introduction into basic qualitative molecular orbital theory to enable the reader to make the most of the VRML orbitals on the CD. The CD itself contains an extended interactive textbook and a broad selection of organic compounds and ligands for inorganic complexes including their molecular orbitals. In several demonstrations, the student can change parameters and observe the change in the orbitals or zoom and rotate the 3D-VRML objects. The CD-ROM is intended for use on a large variety of platforms including Windows 95/98/NT-based PCs, Macs, and UNIX-based systems. It only requires a CD-ROM drive, a 4th generation Web browser with Java and JavaScript capabilities (Netscape 4 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4), a VRML plug-in, a high resolution graphics card (we recommend a colour depth of 16 bits, corresponding to 16.7 million colours), and a pointing device such as a mouse, trackball or touchpad. Installation: The book is accessible directly from CD-ROM. However, for improved performance, it is useful to copy the contents to a local hard disk. This will need about 450 MB of free disk space. For the installation of the Web browser, please refer to the installation instructions. Some browsers already contain a VRML plug-in, for example the Netscape Communicator Professional Version 4.0x includes Silicon Graphics CosmoPlayer. We have tested the CD-ROM with both Netscape browsers and MS Internet Explorer and several plug-ins. Good results are given by the CosmoPlayer for Netscape and Microsoft's own VRML viewer for Internet Explorer. They are available via the Internet at: CosmoPlayer (Windows95/98/NT, Mac OS 7.6.1 or higher, and IRIX 5.3 or higher) : http://cosmosoftware.com/ MS VRML 2.0 viewer (only Windows95/98/NT): http://www.microsoft.com/vrml/toolbar/ http://www.eu.microsoft.com/vrml/toolbar/ Another Web site is Intervista Software at http://www.intervista.com/, they also offer a free Mac (Netscape) and PC (Netscape and MS IE) viewer. A more general web site about VRML which contains a lot of links and information on VRML viewers and plug-ins is "The VRML Repository" (http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/repository.html). Here you can find a list of plug-ins for other platforms as well. These URLs may have already changed by the time you buy this book, so we cannot guarantee that these plug-ins can still be found at the above locations. For the installation of the VRML plug-ins, again please refer to the installation instructions of the plug-in. Use: In order to start The Chemist's Electronic Book of Orbitals on a PC running Windows 95/98/NT open the Windows Explorer, change to the drive letter of your CD-ROM and double-click on the file index.htm in the root directory of your CD drive. If your web browser is installed correctly, it will open and display the main page of the book. Alternatively, start your browser and open index.htm from the root directory of your CD drive. The latter procedure will work on other platforms as well (Mac and UNIX). Every page of the book has a navigation menu in the left, yellow column. The current page is highlighted with a black square. Move your mouse and the next choice is also highlighted with a black square. Click on Contents and a list of all linked pages appears in the main window. From here, you can browse through the text, go to a specific chapter or view an interactive demonstration. There is also a Glossary which explains many terms used within the textbook. These expressions are also linked from within the electronic version. If you want to go directly to the VRML orbitals, click on Molecules in VRML. You will see an alphabetic list of all molecules on the CD. A more detailed list is also available from the page. In order to select this list, choose General Information - Installation - Use. What can you do with all these VRML files on the CD-ROM? They are stored as 3D-objects, which can be rotated, observed from all sides and zoomed at will. If you decide to use SGI's CosmoPlayer, it offers a very nice help (click on the "?" in the lower right corner). This explains every button of the VRML plug-in, gives a quick reference and helps you to set user-defined preferences. Masthead: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, Tim The chemist’s electronic book of orbitals / Timothy R.Clark, Rainer B. Koch. ISBN 3-540-63726-5 (hardcover: alk.paper) 1. Molecular orbitals. I. Koch, Rainer B., 1966- II. Title. QD461 .C415 1998 541.2’2--ddc21 98-46052 ISBN 3-540-63726-5 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other ways, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. (c) Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999 Printed in Germany The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typesetting: Data conversion by Medio, Berlin Cover design: de’blik, Berlin SPIN: 10633091 52/3020 - 5 4 3 2 1 0 Contact: Dr. Rainer Koch FB Chemie Universitaet Oldenburg P.O. Box 2503 D-26111 Oldenburg Germany Dr. Tim Clark Computer-Chemie-Centrum Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg Naegelsbachstr. 25 D-91052 Erlangen Germany