Organic Chemistry: Enantiomers

Victor Lopez's Final Project

CSC 471, Introduction to Graphics

Spring 2009, Dr. Zoё Wood

Introduction

My major is Biochemistry along with a minor in computer science. This project was inpire to be able to combine the two different fields. When I was enrolled in Organic Chemistry, it was apperent that being able to visualize the compound's structures in 3D was important to understand the material. There was one particular section that I had some trouble at first, and this was called enantiomers. Enantiomers are compounds that are mirror image of each other and they are nonsuperimposable. They may look the same but they do have different chemical properties. For example, carvone has an enantiomer, one which smells like caraway and the other like spearmint. This is also important in drug discovery as there has been cases when one enantiomer is drug of choice and the other enantiomer could be potentially harmful or even deadly.

This program is going to illustrate how two compounds are enantiomers by allowing the used to manipulate one model to try to superimposable the other model.

Feel free to download OChem Enantiomer v1.0 here

Program Usage

The screen starts with a curtain. Following commands are accessible via the mouse and keyboard:
 

Mouse controls:

  • Right-Mouse Button: Rotate Model
  • Left-Mouse Button: Move Model

Keyboard controls:

  • O: Open the curtain / Pause the curtain's movement
  • Q: Quit

Hierarchical Modeling

All the atoms, which are plane circles, and the connections, made from cylinders, are all hierarchical models.

Animation

The only animation is the curtain's ability to open to display the compounds.

Texture Mapping

Both, the curtain and the stage floor, are texture mapping. This images are from a Nintendo's game, Super Marios Bros. 3.

Lighting and Materials

There is only one light and the objects, compounds, are color with different materials

 

 

Screen Shots:

This is when the program loads, it has the name of the compound.
Once the curtain opens, it displays the compunds.

Future Additions

The following is a list of items, had time permitted, that I would have liked to implement.

  • More complex models, I found that the math was more complicated to create a cyclohexane, which is a very common ring.
  • A complete reaction with two compounds.

References

  • Wade, L.G. "Organic Chemistry"; Pearson Education, Inc., New Jersey, 2006.