Torsion Explorer Applet

After drawing a chemical structure, selecting the lasso tool and moving the mouse pointer over any rotatable bond, then a torsion angle histogram is displayed, which shows all torsion angles of similar bond environments from x-ray structures of the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). A dynamic Newman projection is updated, when the mouse pointer moves over the histogram. This applet allows a fast conformational analysis of chemical structures based on reliable x-ray data.

Originally this page contained a Java applet letting you draw a molecule and display torsion angle histograms of crystallographic data directly from within the web browser. Because of the dwindling support of web browsers for Java applets, we now offer a small Java app with the same functionality. This app can be downloaded as a single file, does not require any installation and can be launched by a double click, provided you have a Java Runtime environment installed. To download the TorsionExplorer app just press the Download button below.

Torsion Explorer showing torsion histogram for one bond of a theobromine derivate

This tool was possible thanks to the kind support of Saulius Grazulis and Antanas Vaitkus from the Crystallography Open Database (COD).