Generates high-quality images and animations, from where data can be analyzed, data like sequence alignments, docking results, trajectories, etc. There are several features that bring extra content, for example, the Multalign Viewer feature, that has the function of displaying individual sequences and multiple sequence alignments.
Developed by the highly reputed University of California at San Francisco, Chimera is a software program created to suffice the needs of academic users, nonprofit organizations or dedicated individuals. Thanks to this software tool, they can perform interactive visualizations, analyze molecular structures, sequence alignments and docking results.
The program has a straightforward installation process that can easily be completed by any individual with minimal computing skills. Its GUI is far from impressive, but it is well-optimized and it provides great stability and responsiveness. However, there are very few customization options for its appearance and the main menu definitely lacks some colors. Also, the main menu content, despite its variety, seems overcrowded.
About its capabilities. Chimera has several tutorials and vast documentation, which are available for free for anyone who wants to better understand its features. Speaking about features, the program allows users to generate high-quality images and animations along with a sequence viewer that is able to locate, view, and edit sequence alignments. Moreover, it is equipped with a tool called Pipes and Planks that shows protein helices as "pipes" and strands as "planks", with connectors for the intervening coil.
All in all, Chimera is a complex software tool, equipped with various features, but it requires a chemistry background in order to fully understand and use its features.
v1.1 [May 9, 2008]
-AmberTools updated to version 18
-Previous/Next buttons added to activation/display button rows below the command line, for quickly cycling through (or toggling between) model display and/or activation
-Area/Volume from Web (Surface/Binding Analysis) — removed because the NIH StrucTools server is no longer available
-Multalign Viewer (Sequence) — option to get annotations from the Conserved Domain Database (CDD) removed due to CDD changes
-MD Movie preserves PSF segment name as residue attribute segment, and reports the segment names to the Reply Log as the trajectory is read. Therefore a segment named XYZ could be referenced in a command using the atom specifier :/segment=XYZ
-Upgraded Tk windowing toolkit to fix bug on Mac where specifying multiple coordinate files in MD Movie could hang Chimera.
