The Chem-Ray graphics program is based upon a number of drawing styles. These styles are of two types. First, are the dynamic styles consisting of simple images that move under mouse control. Second, are the static styles that create high quality display images.

There are three dynamic styles.

The dynamic style images can be rotated, scaled or translated in real time using the mouse and mouse buttons.

This is an example of a Charon image which features an automatic labeling routine. Charon images are written in the Windows Metafile format. This means that the images may be imported into other applications such as Microsoft Word, where they may be scaled and edited.

Chem-Ray Sticks

There are two styles of Chem-Ray Stick images, with or without antialiasing. The antialiasing procedure is based upon a super sampling technique and gives a shaper image with "jagged edges" minimized. In the above pair of images the one on the left has no antialiasing, while the one on the right does. Antialiasing calculations take about four times longer and are not available on computers with low color graphics boards.

There are two styles of Chem-Ray Ball and Stick images, with or without antialiasing. There is also an option to turn on or off "rings". The rings are the circles on the atoms that hightlight the bond connections. Two colors are used to define the rings, an inner and and outer color. The rings help to give a three dimensional appearance to the figure.

There are also two styles of Chem-Ray Space Filling images, with or without antialiasing. The example show here has been created with antialiasing turned on. Once a Chem-Ray image has been created the colors of the atoms, bonds and background can be altered using the color menu.