Molecular Geometry
This column shows the 3-D geometry of the atoms in the molecule.
These structures contain only the atoms, not the lone pairs. However,
they are based on the overall arrangement of all of the charge clouds including
the lone pairs which are presented in the preceding column (Overall Arrangement).
Notice that for those molecules for which resonance structures are possible,
the 3-D structure is an average of the resonance contributors. Also, the
models are shown as ball and stick figures. Each bond is represented
by a single stick (even if its a multiple bond). You can change the
display to other representations, such as wireframe or spacefill, by right-clicking
with the mouse over the structure and going to the display menu.
Ball and stick is a good choice for seeing the connectivity ("skeleton"
of the bonded atoms), but the spacefill representations shows the relative
sizes of the atoms. Try changing the display to spacefill to see
the volume of the molecule and the shape of the molecular surface.