Create models and drawings of atoms, molecules, or orbitals. Work with different types of rendering modes, generate animations, and explore the internal parts of the orbitals. Export and import data to and from ORB, OV, PPM, TIF, BMP, WRL or plain text files.
Orbital Viewer can display almost any atomic or molecular electron probability function. For atoms, this plotted function is the hydrogenic solution of Schrodinger's Equation. For molecules, the linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) method is used.
There are three broad categories of what can be displayed: surfaces of constant probability, probability distributions, and asymptotes (or locations of zero probability). Each of these show something different, however the probability distribution is the closest to what might be measured by actual experiments.
There are also three general types of display: point plots (only for probability distributions and asymptotes), polygon plots (only for surfaces of constant probability and asymptotes), and raytracing. Generally, points are the fastest to manipulate (rotate, zoom, etc.), polygons are the fastest to coarsely compute, and raytracing is the best looking.
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