Force Field Explorer 

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Introduction

Force Field Explorer is a graphical user interface to the TINKER suite of molecular modeling tools. The goal is to create a robust environment for computational chemistry and molecular engineering applications. Current features include:

bulletSetup and real-time visualization of modeling routines, including local/global optimizations, sampling methods, etc.
bulletBasic 3D molecular visualization (wireframe, spacefilling, ball & stick, etc) with special features for force field specific parameters such as Lennard-Jones radii and partial charge magnitudes.
bulletA comprehensive editor for TINKER keyword files, which contain parameters that control modeling algorithms.
bulletTINKER trajectory playback.

Current Release   

Current Major Version: Force Field Explorer 4.2

Major Release Date: June 2004

Last Minor Revision: July 30, 2004

    This is the third release of Force Field Explorer, which is being labeled v. 4.2 and dated June 2004 to mirror the TINKER version it is compatible with. Force Field Explorer dependencies, listed below, are now included in self-extracting installers for Linux, Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows.

  1. TINKER version 4.2.
  2. Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.4.X (1.4.2 preferred).
  3. Java3D 1.3.X (1.3.1 preferred).

Major improvements over the 2nd release include:

bulletSelf-Extracting Installers for Linux, Mac OS X (requires Panther 10.3) and Microsoft Windows. These distributions include TINKER binaries, source code, documentation and example/test files. The JRE and Java3D libraries are included with the Linux and Windows installers. Mac OS X Panther 10.3 already includes a JRE, however Java3D must be obtained from the OS X website (details on the Download page).
bulletAn intuitive, consistent selection mechanism.
bulletImproved keyword and modeling panels.
bulletSupport for TINKER internal coordinate, restart and induced dipole file formats, plus loading of Protein Databank files directly from the PDB or from disk. Conversion of PDB files to TINKER format (with automatic atom typing for many biomolecules) is also supported.

Future Plans

    The most important Force Field Explorer development goal is to add molecular editing features. We hope to soon target Java 5.0, codenamed "Tiger" (Force Field Explorer already runs on beta releases of Java 5.0), and Java3D 1.4. Java3D has just been made open source by Sun, which has the potential to spur API improvements. Other goals include a few more visualization methods and support for other file types.