UCSF Chimera is a highly extensible program for interactive visualization and analysis of molecular structures and related data, including density maps, supramolecular assemblies, sequence alignments, docking results, trajectories, and conformational ensembles. High-quality images and animations can be generated. Chimera includes complete documentation and several tutorials, and can be downloaded free of charge for academic, government, nonprofit, and personal use. Chimera is developed by the Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics (RBVI), supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (P41-GM103311).

UCSF ChimeraX (or simply ChimeraX) is the next-generation molecular visualization program from the RBVI, following UCSF Chimera.

Feature Highlight

Morphing

Different conformations and even different proteins can be compared by morphing from one structure to another. Users can specify the method of coordinate interpolation and how many intermediate structures should be generated. The result is displayed in Chimera's trajectory viewer, MD Movie. The morph can then be saved in coordinate form or recorded as an animation.

(More features...)

---

Gallery Sample

Loop Interactions

The image shows interactions of the delta-1 loop with the rest of hepatitis C virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (Protein Data Bank entry 1quv). Loop residues in contact with the rest of the structure (van der Waals overlap ≥ 0.01 Å) are displayed as sticks; interacting surface atoms are shown as red patches. (More samples...)