Molecule Shapes

Molecule Shapes is a lightweight educational application whose purpose is to help you examine the shape of molecules in a 3D environment. You are given the freedom to view how the shape of molecules change based on different numbers of bonds and electron pairs. The tool can be deployed on all Windows versions out there, provided that you have the Java working environment installed on the target computer.

You may take advantage of the program’s portability status and drop it on USB flash drives or other similar devices so you can have it with you all the time. Plus, you may run it without having to possess administrative privileges on the host PC. The utility can be opened straight from the storage device.

It is important to mention that you can get quick access to its GUI by running the executable file because you do not have to go through an installation process. Plus, you may uninstall it with a simple deletion task because it does not leave entries in your Windows registry.

Molecule Shapes sports a clutter-free and straightforward design. A help manual is not comprised in the package, but you can quickly get an idea about how to make the most out of the application’s features because they look easy to work with.

A multi-tabbed layout is implemented for helping you switch between two learning modules: model and real molecules. The model option allows you to explore the shape of molecules in a 3D environment, rotate the element to different angles, add single, double, or triple bonds to the central atom, attach lone pairs to the atom, deleted the added objects or remove all of them with a single click, as well as show lone pairs and bond angles.

The other mode, so-called real molecules, is developed specifically for helping you view the structure of different molecules, such as H2O, CO2, SO2, BF3, NH3, CH4, SF4, and SF6. There are also some options that teachers can tweak, namely show a white background (instead of a black one) and display or hide outer lone pairs.

Tests have pointed out that Molecule Shapes carries out a task quickly and without errors. However, it is not quite friendly with system resources so the overall performance of the computer may be affected.

To sum things up, Molecule Shapes comes packed with several handy features for helping you learn some useful details about the shapes of molecules. It can be employed by teachers for learning students information about molecules in an interactive way.