NanoEngineer-1 is an open-source molecular modeling and simulation system that looks and feels like SolidWorks. It features an easy-to-use interactive 3D graphical user interface for designing and modeling large, atomically precise composite systems like molecular machines, DNA, carbon nanotubes, peptide chains, machine elements, etc.

For simulation and analysis, NanoEngineer-1 supports multiple molecular dynamics and quantum mechanics systems in a single environment, providing a wide range of nano-scale simulation capabilities. The following molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry packages are supported:

• GROMACS
• GAMESS
• PC GAMESS
• Massively Parallel Quantum Chemistry (MPQC) Program

1. Gallery

1.1. Molecular machines

1.2. Carbon nanotubes

1.3. Structural DNA nanotechnology

1.4. Molecular manufacturing

1.5. About these images

2. Helpful links and installing

3. Installing from source

3.2. Installing from source on windows

4. Video

Developer/user group: http://groups.google.com/group/nanoengineer-dev

More information about these images can be found on the nanorex.com gallery.

Many of the images and animations in these galleries have been rendered with QuteMol, a new open-source, interactive, high quality molecular visualization system which exploits the latest GPU capabilities through OpenGL shaders to offers an array of innovative visual effects. QuteMol was developed by Marco Tarini and Paolo Cignoni of the Visual Computing Lab at ISTI - CNR.

• Nanorex http://nanorex.com/
• mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/nanoengineer-dev
• wiki http://nanoengineer-1.net/

In particular:

• Getting NE-1
• Need help?
• Documentation including manuals, tutorials, videos, API docs, etc.
• Getting involved
• Python documentation (class diagram, etc)

Nanoengineer is a tricky beast to install. The 2008 release will install and run on OS X and Windows. Compiling and running from source on Linux is the current ongoing project. To facilitate this effort, users can either create a chroot and install an older distribution of Ubuntu, or download a ready-made chroot. The development efforts are presently centered around upgrading dependencies in successive versions of modernized Ubuntu chroots, instead of trying to fix all problems simultaneously while running NanoEngineer on a modern GNU/Linux distribution.

To download and use the chroot:

# download the ready-made chroot archive
wget http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/nanoengineer/nanoengineer-chroot.tar.gz

# extract the chroot
tar -zxvf nanoengineer-chroot.tar.gz

# jump in
sudo chroot nanoengineer-chroot/

# run nanoengineer
su nanoengineeruser -c "python ~/code/nanoengineer/cad/src/main.py"

Alternatively, you can follow instructions to create a chroot. Developers can be reached on the mailing list or on irc.freenode.net in the ##hplusroadmap channel.

Warning: this is experimental

kirka successfully ran NE1 on windows 7 x64, with half of CAD functionality working.

To do it, use the following steps:

1. Install Python 2.7.3 (x64) from python.org

2. Install Numpy, PIL, PyOpenGL, PyOpenGL-accelerate, PyQt (all x64) from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/

3. Run NE1 from commandline as usual (python directory should be in PATH): python cad/src/main.py

Note that this was tested with this branch of NE1: "Win7x64" from https://github.com/elfion/nanoengineer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYN18d7gHg

The nanofactory animation was funded by a challenge grant. Read more here (Foresight Institute). The original files are here and here.