Molecular Symmetry App The intent is to have the App do 4 main things...

1.- Allow you to answer the Boolean questions that lead to the determination of a molecule's point group. http://symmetry.otterbein.edu/common/images/flowchart.pdf

As to how the app will be useful: it is hard to memorize the flow chart which the app can replace 2.- Once the point group is determined... have the character table for the point group displayed below a molecule that belongs in that group. http://www.webqc.org/symmetry.php

As to how the app will be useful: finding a complete set of character tables is next to impossible so the app will help with that

3.- The character table's operations contained are "links" when hovering over the operation symmetry elements (axis, plane, point) corresponding to the operations are "displayed".

As to how the app will be useful: one of the hardest things for a chemistry student is to "picture" a molecule in their head and then ask them to perform specific operations (rotation, inversion, etc)... that is why we will have the animation of what the different operations look like on a representative sample. 4.- If the operation labels are clicked the operation is demonstrated on the sample molecule.

Here is a link to a program that I think does some of #'s 3 and 4 but I cannot run it on my machine (I think is the shockwave requirement) http://www.molwave.com/software/3dmolsym/3dmolsym.htm here is another one that uses JAVA and does #3 and 4 ...rather slow http://symmetry.otterbein.edu/mobile/