The Axiom Discovery Molecular Explorer ActiveX control is a Windows ActiveX control providing molecular visualization capabilities. It can be used in any ActiveX enabled container such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, or a client application developed using Visual Basic or C/C++ for example.

Molecular Explorer ActiveX provides many visualization features suited for both small molecule and protein structure visualization. The control uses OpenGL as its rendering engine and is optimized to provide high performance and usability.

Molecular Explorer ActiveX is capable of reading all the major molecular file formats such as MDL Molfile, Brookhaven PDB, etc. In addition it supports the Axiom Discovery Exchange format that allows tailored visualizations to be created and shared.

Key Benefits

• Embedded molecular visualization within ActiveX clients such as Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer
   

• Application Programming Interface (API) allows control to be programmed from the client
   

• Can be used to implement custom solutions that do not require an entire molecular modeling package deployable as stand-alone applications or web based solutions

Key Visualization Capabilities

• Graphics styles include wireframe, ball and stick, spacefill, solvent and contact (Connolly) surfaces, ribbons, peptide planes 
   

• Advanced visualization methods support display of multiple iso-surfaces, iso-contours and iso-planes, dipoles and hydrophobic moments 
   

• A broad range of properties can be mapped onto surfaces and geometric objects, including hydrophobicity, lipophilic potential, electrostatic potential, reactivity  Reaction paths, normal modes and molecular dynamics can be animated

Case Study - Web based small molecule Browser

A company dealing with small drug like molecules has constructed a large database of molecular structures stored in molfiles. It is desirable to provide scientists with a solution that allows them to view the molecules using different display types and be able to interact with structures so they can be viewed in different orientations etc.

An application that allowed calculations and visualization of protein structures stored in the Brookhaven Protein Database was required. The calculations are performed by Web Services provided by the company web servers. To allow global access to these services a Windows .NET solution was provided with both a Windows Forms based client and a browser based client. The visualization of the proteins was provided by the Molecular Explorer control.