Re: >H FYI:NanoCAD in Java (fwd)

Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Sat, 2 Aug 1997 23:11:34 -0700

Dan@Clemmensen.ShireNet.com, (Dan Clemmensen), writes:
> Eugene Leitl wrote:
> >
> >
> [NanoCAD in java]
> > http://world.std.com/~wware/ncad_java/nc.html
> >
> > Will Ware email: wware[at]world[dot]std[dot]com
>
> This is really neat! One of the biggest advantages of Java is that
> the user doesn't have to do anything to download the code.
> You just bring up the web page and your browser does the rest.
>
> If you have a Java-capable browser (Netscape 3.01 or IE 3?), you
> should REALLY try this. Please note that it's still a sophisticated
> graphics program, and therefore it is big enough to take a while to
> download (20 seconds at 64kbps) and will run better on a faster
> computer.

This is indeed a very cool program, and the Java interface works great.
The big problem though is that you can't save your work (Java applets
can't save to disk with current versions of Netscape and IE).

At first I thought it was just a simple drawing program, then I realized
that the energy minimization buttons would actually move the atoms around
until the atom positions and bond angles were realistic.

I entered a couple of simple structures from Nanosystems (the rod in
figure 9.5a and a modified form of the bond bearing in 10.1). The
energy minimization functions worked pretty well, but things did not
come out quite right. I am no chemist, but I could see that some of the
atomic arrangements were not as symmetric as they should be. So there
are probably still some bugs in the software.

Hal