Re: octahedral volume

From: David A. Case <case_at_scripps.edu>
Date: Tue 21 Jan 2003 09:03:23 -0800

On Fri, Jan 17, 2003, Peter Varnai wrote:
>
> When constructing the system, leap reports a volume. This has
> been changed between version 6 and 7 according to leap/tools.c:
> dVolume = dMaxX * dMaxY * dMaxZ;
> ver6:
> dVolume *= 0.5;
> ver7:
> dVolume *= 0.7698004;
> /* = sqrt(1 - 3*cost^2 - 2*cost^3), where cost = -1/3 = cos(109.471) */
>
> Can someone explain where the ver7 formula comes from?

Between 6 and 7, amber changed the way it internally handles truncated
octahedra. The new way uses an equivalent triclinic cell; this doesn't
"look" like a truncated octahedron, but is equivalent to it. The ptraj
"image" command knows how to rearrange the boundaries to look like the
truncated octahedron.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, and maybe others can chime in. But I
think the basic ideas are given in the following paper (among other places):

%A H. Bekker
%T Unification of Box Shapes in Molecular Simulations.
%J J. Computat. Chem.
%V 18
%P 1930-1942
%D 1997

..dac


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David A. Case                     |  e-mail:      case_at_scripps.edu
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Received on Tue Jan 21 2003 - 09:03:23 PST
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