The elucidation and manipulation of surface structures is an important component of surface research that is made all the more effective by 3-D visualization. Invented by the 1986 Nobel laureates Gerhard Binning and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM Research, STM images surfaces by probing the local density of electronic states under a scanning metal tip. In this implementation of STM, the highest peaks correspond to greatest overlap between the wavefunctions of the surface and that of the scanning tip, not necessarily to the locations of atoms. The raw data which is used to create the visualization is an example of two dimensional, regular data which has been byte normalized. This use of small molecule xenobiotics to control some pathochemistry of larger biomolecular systems is the goal of pharmaceutical drug design.
Visualization can be a valuable adjunct to the overall process of rational drug design.
Even if a potential drug has the correct shape for binding to a biomolecular target, it still requires the appropriate interactions to bring it and hold it there. The image shown is a representation of the electrostatic behavior of a potential drug as illustrated by the use of streamlines to depict the lines of force. By varying the spherical surface used to generate the streamlines, it is possible to explore the distance dependence of the electrostatic field. Image shows a screen capture of Data Explorer used for a data mining application on a chemical database. The matrix of solid disks is a visual representation of the quadrupole tensor itself.