Protein Models

In 1975 I constructed a wire model, an alpha carbon trace, of carp muscle calcium binding protein using Byron's bender. A Thing-O-Matic, I thought, would allow me to build the same model much more easily. I began with a program from the University of Illinois, VMD, which displays protein structures in various ways and outputs STL files. While I was successful in making models with VMD's "tube" representation I was not able to print the alpha carbon "trace" representation.

Then I found openSCAD. All one has to do is provide openSCAD with properly oriented spheres and cylinders and let it work its magic. It produces nice alpha traces that are very similar to a wire model. As well the openSCAD file provided can be easily modified to construct ball and stick models from the orthogonal coordinates of small molecules.