= A Starter's tutorial =

In this tutorial we will build a hydrogen molecule atom by atom, load another hydrogen molecule from file. We will recognize the bond structure and dissect the system into two separate molecules. We will tesselate one molecule. And eventually, we will do a correlation analysis. Note that this tutorial will not go into the details of the code, it will just explain what to do and what happens using molecuilder on the command line.

We assume throughout this tutorial that your main folder is ''molecuilder'', that you have created a subfolder called ''build'' wherein the compilation took place and the executable's path is then ''molecuilder/build/src/molecuilder''. We assume that you have entered the ''build'' directory before starting this tutorial, hence molecuilder can be launched by entering ''./src/molecuilder''.

It is helpful to visually inspect the outputs of molecuilder at each step, [[http://jmol.sourceforge.net/ Jmol]] or [[http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/ vmd]] may be helpful for this purpose.

== Building hydrogen ==

Execute:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.xyz -o xyz -a 6 --position "0, 0, 0"
}}}

This will add an "oxygen" atom (atomic number is actually 8 but we correct the error further below) at (0,0,0). Note that we have called the input file ''test'', which will also be the root of all output files (besides the suffix). We create a xyz output file. It is a very common format with many molecule viewers such as listed exemplarily above. Furtheron, we don't have to specify ''xyz'' anymore, as ''test.xyz'' that we parse and add stuff on top is of ''xyz'' format and will get updated automatically.

Instead of ''-a'' we could have written ''--add-atom'' as well. Almost all actions have this kind of short-form, options such as ''--position'' however never have a short-form. This makes them distinguishable from the actions.

We add the two remaining hydrogen atoms:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.xyz -a 1 --position "0.758602, 0., 0.504284"
./src/molecuilder -i test.xyz -a 1 --position "0.758602, 0., -0.504284"
}}}

As of now, "equal" actions cannot be stacked but this will come very soon. Different actions can however be sequenced on the command line. This is also the reason, why ''-o'' has to be placed in front of ''-a'' as otherwise the output files will be present but empty.

Let's briefly fix atom 0's element, i.e. convert it from carbon to oxygen.
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.xyz -E 8 --atom-by-id 0
}}}

This will change the element of atom with index 0 to 8, i.e. make it an oxygen.

== Changing the simulation domain ==

The simulation domain is not encoded in the ''xyz'' format. Hence, we switch to ''pcp'': There are two possibilities, either we parse the file ''test.xyz'' in or we specify an additional output format (''-o pcp''). We pick the former here:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o pcp -p test.xyz
}}}

Note that we will always add the ''-o xyz'' switch such that ''test.xyz'' is updated, too.

Let's continue and define the simulation box:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o xyz -B "10, 0, 10, 0, 0, 10"
}}}

Note that the '''!BoxLength''' entry in ''test.conf'' has changed, while the file ''test.conf.xyz'' has not changed at all.

Regarding the positions and our domain box, we have set the water molecule a bit right on the corner. Let's shift the molecule a bit

{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o xyz -t "-5, 0, 0" --molecule-by-id 0 --periodic 1
}}}

Note that we explicitely stated here to have periodic boundary conditions active. Hence, the coordinates get wrapped around. If we parse in a config file, all atoms are automatically put into a single moleculde, here referenced by its index 0.

Tedious of entering ''-i test.conf -o xyz'' all the time? If you don't want to check the xyz file, you may also just say ''test.conf'' in its place, which will store information to this pcp config file only.

A better approach for making sure all atoms are inside the domain is to use the bound-in-box action:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o xyz --bound-in-box
}}}

Note that this action has no parameter. It has used the box size specified above. As we have already translated the water molecule, nothing should have happened.

== Parsing in another water molecule ==

Adding atoms singly is now very tedious. Often one already has an xyz description of the molecule. Let's parse in another water molecule from the file [attachment:water.xyz].
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o xyz -p water.xyz
}}}

If we would like to place it right-away somewhere else, we would use this call:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -o xyz -p water.xyz -t "5, 0, 0" --molecule-by-id 1 --periodic 1
}}}
which would translate the newly parsed-in molecule, getting index 1, bey (5,0,0), adhering to periodic boundary conditions.

== Use the bond structure ==

If we parse in the config files again, we will not have two separate molecules, addressable by indices 0 and 1, but a single one. This is bad. Let's do a graph analysis of the system
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -v 3 -D 2.
}}}

Note that we have specified here a verbosity level (''-v'') of 3 such that one sees a bit of what's going on.

Now lets fix it by
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -I
}}}

== Tesselate the second molecule ==

The last step is especially needed for the following tesselation of the second molecule only:
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -I -N 3. --nonconvex-file NonConvexEnvelope --molecule-by-id 2
}}}

This will write a [[http://www.tecplot.com/ TecPlot]] conforming file ''!NonConvexEnvelope.dat'' that contains two triangles right on top of each other. Simply because the water molecule is quite flat and has exactly three atoms, i.e. nodes for the boundary graph.

== Pair correlation analysis ==

We will end this tutorial by doing some analysis on these two water molecules, namely a pair correlation
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -v 3 -C E --elements 1 8 --output-file output-point.csv --bin-output-file bin_output-point.csv --bin-start 0 --bin-end 20
}}}

and a surface correlation analysis.
{{{
./src/molecuilder -i test.conf -v 3 -I -C S --elements 1 --output-file output-surface.csv --bin-output-file bin_output-surface.csv --bin-start 0 --bin-width 1. --bin-end 20 --molecule-by-id 2
}}}

In the respective ''bin_output...csv'' files you find the binned distances between elements hydrogen and oxygen on the one hand and between all hydrogen atoms and the surface of the second water molecule on the other hand.


This ends this tutorial. I hope you have got an idea of how molecuilder is put into action and what can be done.