3DNormalModes is an educational program, suitable for undergraduate students in chemistry. It provides a convenient way to illustrate how a molecule vibrates and the properties of its normal modes of vibration in a real 3D environment.

3DNormalModes includes a database with information concerning the experimental fundamental frequencies and the corresponding normal modes of several inorganic and organic molecules. The normal modes have been calculated by ab initio HF/3-21G calculations.

3DNormalModes enables you or your students to choose one of 28 different molecules, orient it appropriately on the screen, choose any of its normal vibrational modes, and animate molecular vibrations in 3D.

In summary with 3DNormalModes you can:

• Animate a normal mode of a selected molecule in a 3D environment.


• Rotate and zoom in/out the molecule so that the vibration can be observed from any viewpoint.


• Adjust the speed of the animation to see the motion clearly.


• Display the atom displacement vectors for the animated normal mode.


• Adjust the length of the displacements of the atoms.


• Display the simplified IR and Raman spectra of the selected molecule and select a fundamental frequency .