A crystallographic molecular lattice builder applied to model lipid bilayers.

It is often desirable for noncrystallographers to generate graphical models of three-dimensional crystal structures based on published coordinates of the atoms that make up the crystallographic unit cells. This type of visualization is particularly important for small-molecule crystals, such as lipid crystals, where one may be interested in investigating interactions between the individual molecules in addition to their conformations. BILAYER BUILDER is a program that generates a portion of the entire crystal structure from the coordinates of the molecules in a single unit cell. It gives users of small desktop computers, such as the Apple Macintosh, the capability to generate and examine model crystal structures with a molecular graphics display program. BILAYER BUILDER stores the crystal coordinates in a Brookhaven Protein Data Bank file format for possible use in a variety of applications on many different computers. Initially, it was written for use with lipid crystals and bilayers but may be used for building an assortment of molecular crystals.