The project continues research into an integrated tool for documentation designed around the unique needs and communication language of biochemical researchers. A software tool called ChemWriter will be implemented based on the Phase I research results. ChemWriter addresses the need of many health scientists to work with text, instrument data, and chemical structure diagrams in an integrated fashion. The software incorporates chemical intelligence to support and streamline the chemical structure diagramming process. Structure diagram development and manipulation is enhanced by allowing users to work at differing conceptual levels--functional group, structural skeleton and molecular-- including the atomic level. Libraries of each kind of structure are provided and the capability to create user-libraries. Chemical intelligence is incorporated into each chemical structure or partial structure regardless of level, giving it knowledge of how and where bonds may form. ChemWriter also supports importation of diagrams from chemical structure databases, and laboratory instrument data directly into documents. The software is made machine independent through use of a common software architecture and a common interface, coded in the X- Windows display description language. ChemWriter should increase researcher productivity, and speed dissemination of important research results.
