Jmol is a Java-based and open-source app that makes it possible for you to visualize, study and manage molecules in a 3D environment.

This, coupled with the fact that it comes with support for chemicals, crystals, materials, and biomolecules, makes Jmol not only a good learning tool that can be used by students and educators, but also a very comprehensive research tool.

Another plus is the fact that Jmol is cross-platform, which means that it will run without problems on macOS, Windows, Linux and other Unix-based operating systems.

A quick look at Jmol’s capabilities and supported features, and it is clear that is a powerful app: it comes with support for the most common languages, support for all major web browsers out there, and support for a large number of files.

Jmol also supports animations, unit cell and symmetry operations, schematic shapes for secondary structure, RasMol / Chime scripting language, and JavaScript support library.

The application can also export your projects as JPG, PNG, GIF, PPM, PDF, POV, Ray, Gaussian, Maya, VRML, x3D idtf, and web page.

Being Java-based, there’s no surprise that the interface doesn’t come with your typical OS X native look, but it isn’t all that bad and it certainly gets the job done.

Taking all things into consideration, while certainly not a looker, Jmol is a comprehensive and powerful learning and research molecular tool.

Not only does Jmol come with lots of useful features for chemical structure visualization, but it is also open-source and cross-platform, and it works well.

Jmol is part of these download collections: Chemistry Managers