MolDen

General Information

MolDen is a utility for creating and viewing graphical images of molecules and molecular wavefunctions and densities. MolDen can create several types of images including ball-and-stick renderings of molecules as well as 2D and 3D orbital and density contour plots. MolDen can also produce animation sequences of molecular vibrations or optimization pathways. MolDen recognizes many input formats, including GAMESS and Gaussian output files.

Running MolDen

To run MolDen, follow the instructions in the getting started section. Then execute MolDen with the command "molden".

Sample input file for MolDen

MolDen reads input and output files from many programs such as GAMESS and Gaussian. The file must contain information appropriate to the type of plot you wish to make. For instance, if you want to make a contour plot of a molecular orbital obtained with a Gaussian calculation, be sure to add GFInput and Pop=Full to your Gaussian command line in the input file so the Gaussian output file will have the necessary information. See the GAMESS and Gaussian pages for information on their particular input and output formats.

Sample images generated with MolDen

	A ball and stick image of benzene (GIF)
	A contour diagram of an orbital of benzene (GIF)
	A space filling plot of the above orbital (GIF)
	An animation of the lowest energy vibrational mode of benzene (FLI)

Documentation

The MolDen documentation is available as a text document at ~chem/molden/molden.txt.

Also check out the MolDen home page.

Legal Details

MolDen is a freeware product. It is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.caos.kun.nl or from the MolDen home page. MolDen was written by G. Schaftenaar (schaft@caos.kun.nl). Copyright (C) 1991 by Gijs Schaftenaar.