The Biomolecule ToolKit - version 0.2 - README:
This is a DEVELOPER'S RELEASE of the Biomolecule ToolKit (BTK), an Open Source library for use in modeling biological macromolecules. The toolkit will ultimately provide a C++ interface for common high level tasks in computational structural biology, to facilitate and standardize the development of molecular modeling, design and analysis tools. This library is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (see the COPYING file for more details).
Currently, the library interface and design of the BTK are under heavy development, and as such, this release is intended for POTENTIAL DEVELOPERS ONLY. Features may be broken, unimplemented or missing. Interfaces are almost certain to change in the future. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS RELEASE FOR ANY REAL WORK!!
Obtaining Data Files
The BTK reads and writes three-dimensional structures in the format used by the Protein Data Bank (PDB), the canonical repository for biological structures. There are over 15,000 structures freely available for download from the PDB:
You will need to download some PDB files in order to work with and test the BTK.
Other Useful Tools
In order to view the molecular structures described by PDB files, you will need a molecular visualization package. There are several such programs freely available:
RasMol is a widely-used 3D molecular visualization program, available for
download from:
http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/
MolMol is another visualization package with some more advanced features and better graphical rendering capabilities: http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/molmol/
PyMol is a molecular viewer written in Python: http://pymol.sourceforge.net/
For More Information
The most current information about the project is always available from the project website:
and the project's sourceforge development page:
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/btk
There are several mailing lists that you may wish to subscribe to to stay informed about the status of the project:
The btk-announce list is a moderated, low-traffic list which contains announcements of releases and code updates.
The btk-users list is an unmoderated list for everyone who uses or is interested in the BTK.
The btk-developers list is a list restricted to the core developers of the BTK project. To be added to this list, you'll need to be approved by the list administrator.
To subscribe to any of these lists, go to: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=28435
We look forward to hearing from you!
-The BTK Team:
Eric Alm <ealm3141@users.sourceforge.net> Jeff Gray <jjgray@users.sourceforge.net> Tim Robertson <kid50@users.sourceforge.net> Chris Saunders <ctsa@users.sourceforge.net>