UCSF Chimera

UCSF Chimera is a molecular modeling and visualization program developed by the Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics (RBVI) at the University of California, San Francisco. It is a powerful, interactive graphical program for viewing, manipulating, and analyzing molecular structures and related data. Chimera was designed for the visualization and analysis of molecular structures, density maps, trajectories and sequence alignments, including large macromolecular assemblies such as those found in proteins, viruses, and other large molecules.

Features

UCSF Chimera combines interactive molecular visualization with a large set of analysis tools. It offers a number of features that allow users to quickly and easily view, manipulate, and analyze molecular structures and related data:

UCSF Chimera provides a user-friendly platform for visualizing, manipulating, and analyzing molecular structures and associated data.

• Visualization: Chimera provides interactive graphics, animation, and stereoscopic viewing of molecular structures. Users can easily manipulate and visualize molecular structures in 3D and use a variety of tools to explore and analyze them.

• Molecular Mechanics and Dynamics: Chimera offers tools for energy minimization of structures and for playing back and analyzing molecular dynamics trajectories with its MD Movie tool. Users can also color molecular surfaces by Coulombic electrostatic potential and find hydrogen bonds, contacts and clashes between atoms.

• Molecular Modeling: Chimera offers a range of tools for creating, editing, and analyzing molecular structures. These tools allow users to build and refine their models, as well as to compare them to experimental data such as density maps from X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy.

• Structure Comparison and Analysis: Chimera provides a variety of tools for comparing and analyzing molecular structures, such as sequence and structure alignment tools, structure superposition, and structure comparison.

• Molecular Visualization and Rendering: Chimera offers a range of tools for creating and rendering high-quality images and movies of molecular structures. These tools allow users to visualize their models in a variety of ways, including isosurfaces, cartoons, and ribbon diagrams.

• Scripting and Automation: Chimera offers a command line and Python scripting for automating complex tasks. Scripts can be used to automate tasks such as energy minimization, structure comparison, image and movie creation, and molecular visualization.

• Interactive Graphical User Interface: Chimera provides an interactive graphical user interface that makes it easy to use the various tools and features of the program. The interactive graphical user interface allows users to easily access the tools and features of the program, as well as to customize the interface to suit their needs.

• Platforms and Status: Chimera is available for 64-bit Windows 7 or later, macOS and Linux, and it is free for noncommercial use. It is no longer under active development; the RBVI recommends its successor, UCSF ChimeraX, although Chimera still receives occasional maintenance releases.