Converting image to 3D molecule using VEGA ZZ OSRA

VEGA ZZ is a free (for non-profit academic uses) molecular modelling suite. It consists of many third-party packages, which act as an interface to the VEGA ZZ software.

OSRA (Optical Structure Recognition Application) is a free and open-source optical graph recognition program. The stand-alone version of OSRA is a command-line. OSRA converts a graphical representation of chemical structures from images to SMILES (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Specification) format. In addition, the online OSRA tool converts the SMILES string to a 3D molecule in SDF (Standard Data File) file format. OSRA can recognize over 90 graphical format documents by parsing vectors through ImageMagick software. The standard file formats include BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WMF, PDF, PS, etc.

VEGA ZZ consists of an OSRA plug-in that acts as an interface to it. Moreover, it supports imaging devices such as cameras and image scanners for acquiring documents through the TWAIN interface. The VEGA ZZ software parses the graphical input to a SMILES string and converts it to a 3D molecule. The video tutorial below demonstrates the conversion of a document in GIF format image to a 3D structure.