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BALLView: An object-oriented molecular visualization and modeling framework

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Summary

We present BALLView, an extensible tool for visualizing and modeling bio-molecular structures. It provides a variety of different models for bio-molecular visualization, e.g. ball-and-stick models, molecular surfaces, or ribbon models. In contrast to most existing visualization tools, BALLView also offers rich functionality for molecular modeling and simulation, including molecular mechanics methods (AMBER and CHARMM force fields), continuum electrostatics methods employing a Finite-Difference Poisson Boltzmann solver, and secondary structure calculation. Results of these computations can be exported as publication quality images or as movies. Even unexperienced users have direct access to this functionality through an intuitive graphical user interface, which makes BALLView particularly useful for teaching. For more advanced users, BALLView is extensible in different ways. Owing to its framework design, extension on the level of C‰+‰‰+ code is very convenient. In addition, an interface to the scripting language Python allows the interactive rapid prototyping of new methods. BALLView is portable and runs on all major platforms (Windows, MacOS X, Linux, most Unix flavors). It is available free of charge under the GNU Public License (GPL) from our website http://www.ballview.org.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in parts by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grants BIZ 1/1-3, BIZ 4/1-1 and LE 952/2-3. We want to thank the following student workers and fellow team members for their efforts: Andreas Bertsch, Andreas Kerzmann, Anne Dehof, Bettina Leonhardt, Carla Haid, Christian Bender.

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Author notes

  1. Hans-Peter Lenhof & Oliver Kohlbacher

    Present address: Center for Bioinformatics, Saarland University, 15 11 50, 66041, Saarbrücken, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Bioinformatics, Saarland University, 15 11 50, 66041, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Andreas Moll & Andreas Hildebrandt

  2. Center for Bioinformatics, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Sand 14, 72070, Tübingen, Germany

    Oliver Kohlbacher

Authors
  1. Andreas Moll
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  2. Andreas Hildebrandt
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  3. Hans-Peter Lenhof
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  4. Oliver Kohlbacher
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Moll.

Additional information

Hans-Peter Lenhof and Oliver Kohlbacher contributed equally to this work

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Moll, A., Hildebrandt, A., Lenhof, HP. et al. BALLView: An object-oriented molecular visualization and modeling framework. J Comput Aided Mol Des 19, 791–800 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-005-9027-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-005-9027-x

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