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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
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