Introduction

This Tutorial will describe the basic mechanics of creating Lipid Packing Algorithms (LPA) for the Membrane Editor.

A Lipid Packing Algorithm's purpose is to place the lipids into the membrane range and/or to arrange existing lipids, so that they make up a well-formed lipid membrane, all the while respecting the user's settings and constellation of desired molecules.

A Lipid Packing Algorithm has to be written in Java. If you are not familiar with Java, please read the Sun Tutorial or any other tutorial to get an introduction to the programming language Java.

Hint: Choose a development environment that is comfortable for you. Popular development environments are Eclipse or Netbeans. Of course you can use every other development environment or even work with a plain text editor and compile tools which meet your needs.

Background: Lipid Packing Algorithms are a subset of Membrane Packing Algorithms. For more information on the theoretical background on this topic, please have a look at the following publication:

Sommer B, Dingersen D, Gamroth C, Schneider SE, Rubert S, Krüger J, Dietz, K-D: CELLmicrocosmos 2.2 MembraneEditor (2011): A Modular Interactive Shape-Based Software Approach To Solve Heterogeneous Membrane Packing Problems. J. Chem. Inf. Model. 51(5), , 1165–1182.

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