A haptic-based framework for chemistry education

Abstract

In this demo we present a haptic-based framework for the exploration of the electrical surface of molecules. The geometrical models of molecules are extracted from theoretical data using file formats widely adopted in chemical and biological fields. The addition of information computed with computational chemistry tools allows users to feel the interaction forces between an explored molecule and a charge associated to the haptic device. The developed tool can be used to explore electrostatic fields of molecules, either for didactic or research purposes due to its reliance on computational data. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.