VMD - Visual Molecular Dynamics

VMD is a molecular visualization program for displaying, animating, and analyzing large biomolecular systems using 3-D graphics and built-in scripting. VMD supports computers running MacOS X, Unix, or Windows, is distributed free of charge, and includes source code.
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Spotlight

Since its inception, VMD was designed to take advantage of graphics processing units (GPUs) for interactive renderings of large biomolecular complexes. Recently, GPUs have become programmable and their massive parallel processing capabilities can now be utilized for non-graphical computations. VMD makes uses of this type GPU-based parallel computation to greatly accelerate calculation of electrostatic potential fields, used for visualization and analysis, and for modeling operations such as ion placement. Ongoing VMD development efforts will expand the use of GPU acceleration even further, for acceleration of volumetric processing, structure and trajectory analysis, and compute-limited operations performed within VMD and it's plugins. More information on GPU acceleration of molecular modeling applications is provided here.
Other Spotlights
Placement of ions in the ribosome

Overview

Molecular representations
VMD plugin library
Molecular file formats
GPU-accelerated computing
Interactive molecular dynamics
Programs that use VMD
VMD research publications
How to cite VMD
VMD citation list (24,000 as of Apr'18)

Download

Download (all versions)
VMD 1.9.3 (MacOS X, Unix, Windows)
VMD 1.9.2 (MacOS X, Unix, Windows)
VMD 1.9.1 (MacOS X, Unix, Windows)
VMD script library
License, Copyright and Disclaimer

Documentation and Support

User and installation guides
VMD-L mailing list
Publication image tutorial (YouTube)
Quick help
FAQ
Bug List

News and Announcements

NAMD goes quantum: an integrative suite for hybrid simulations, Nature Methods, 2018
J. Physical Chemistry B, Klaus Schulten Memorial Issue, 2017
Challenges of Integrating Stochastic Dynamics and Cryo-electron Tomograms in Whole-cell Simulations, JPCB 2017
Early Experiences Porting the NAMD and VMD Molecular Simulation and Analysis Software to GPU-Accelerated OpenPOWER Platforms, LNCS 2016
Immersive Molecular Visualization with Omnidirectional Stereoscopic Ray Tracing and Remote Rendering, HPDAV 2016
High Performance Molecular Visualization: In-Situ and Parallel Rendering with EGL, HPDAV 2016
Evaluation of Emerging Energy-Efficient Heterogeneous Computing Platforms for Biomolecular and Cellular Simulation Workloads, HCW 2016
Atomic Detail Visualization of Photosynthetic Membranes with GPU-Accelerated Ray Tracing, J. Par. Comp. 2016
TopoGromacs: Automated Topology Conversion from CHARMM to GROMACS within VMD, JCIM 2016
Past announcements

Gallery

Chromatophore VR demo (VMD + Unreal Game Engine) shown in NVIDIA booth at SC'16
Example VMD VR/3-D YouTube videos
Chemical Visualization of Human Pathogens: the Retroviral Capsids, Finalist, SC'15 Viz. Showcase
Visualization of Energy Conversion Processes in a Light Harvesting Organelle at Atomic Detail, 1st Place Winner, SC'14 Viz. Showcase
VMD movie gallery on YouTube
Gallery of Posters, Images, and Movies made with VMD
VMD running in the NanoDome at Temple University

Development

VMD User Survey Results
VMD development status and pre-release test downloads
CVS source code access
VMD Programmer's documentation