Subsections

 
3.1 Command Line Interface

Executing Omega with no arguments will result in:

prompt> omega2

No argument specified on the command line
Required parameters:
    -in : Input filename
    -out : Output filename
For more help type:
  omega2 --help'

A description of the command line interface can be obtained by executing omega with the -help option.

prompt> omega2 --help

will generate the following output:

Help functions:
  omega2 --help simple      : Get a list of simple parameters
  omega2 --help all         : Get a complete list of parameters
  omega2 --help defaults    : List the defaults for all parameters
  omega2 --help <parameter> : Get detailed help on a parameter
  omega2 --help html        : Create an html help file for this program

If you desire to see all of the command-line options use -help all.

prompt> omega2 --help all

will generate the following output:

Complete parameter list
    File Options
      -commentEnergy : Writes conformer energies to the comment field
      -in : Input filename
      -includeInput : Pass the input structure into output (unmodified)
      -log : Override prefix used to name output files
      -out : Output filename
      -param : Omega control parameter file
      -pendingFile : Filename used for pending molecules file
      -prefix : Prefix to use to name output files
      -rotorOffsetCompress : Output compressed OEBinary
      -sdEnergy : Writes conformer energies to the SD tag field
      -status : Filename used for status report file
      -verbose : Triggers copious logging output
      -warts : Add conformer number wart to title of multiconformers

    3D Construction Parameters
      -addfraglib : File(s) containing fragments used for 3D construction, in
                    addtion to built-in fraglib.
      -buildff : Force field to use for initial structure refinement
      -canonOrder : Place atoms/bond in canonical order
      -deleteFixHydrogens : Deletes hydrogens from fixfile fragment
      -dielectric : Dielectric used for electrostatic calculations
      -exponent : Exponent used for electrostatic calculations
      -fixfile : File used to specify a user defined fragment
      -fixrms : RMS used to identify invalid superpositions onto fixfile
                template
      -fromCT : Generate structures from connection-table only.
      -maxmatch : Maximum number of allowed matches of fixfile fragment
      -setfraglib : File(s) containing fragments used for 3D construction.
                    Replaces built-in fraglib
      -umatch : Only use unique matches for fixfile fragment replacement

    Structure Enumeration
      -enumNitrogen : Enumerate pyramidal invertible nitrogen geometries
      -enumRing : Enumerate ring conformers

    Torsion Driving Parameters
      -erange : Energy window values based on number of rotors
      -ewindow : Energy window used for conformer selection
      -maxConfRange : Maximum number of conformers based on number of rotors
      -maxconfgen : Maximum number of conformations to be generated
      -maxconfs : Maximum number of conformations to be saved
      -maxrot : Maximum number of rotatable bonds in a molecule
      -maxtime : Maximum time (s) allowed for torsion search
      -rangeIncrement : Size of rotor groupings for range flags
      -rms : RMS threshold used to determine duplicate conformations
      -rmsrange : RMS threshold values based on number of rotors
      -searchff : Force field to use during torsion search
      -torlib : Input name of torsion rules file

    PVM Parameters
      -pvmconf : A text file specifying a PVM configuration
      -pvmdebug : Generate an enormous volume of PVM debug information
      -pvmlog : Filename used for PVM log file.
      -pvmpass : Number of molecules to pass to a slave at one time

3.1.1 Required Parameters

-in
File containing one or more molecular connection tables to be processed by Omega. File format types are discussed in section 3.1.2.

-out
File to write conformers generated by Omega. File formats are discussed in section 3.1.2. Gzipped OEBinary is the recommended output format.

 
3.1.2 Molecular File Formats

Omega can read and write a variety of molecular file formats. The file format is automatically interpreted from the filename suffix.

File type Extension
SMILES .smi .ism .can .smi.gz .ism.gz .can.gz
SDF .sdf .mol .sdf.gz .mol.gz
SKC .skc .skc.gz
CDK .cdk .cdk.gz
MOL2 .mol2 .mol2.gz
PDB .pdb .ent .pdb.gz .ent.gz
MacroModel .mmod .mmod.gz
OEBinary v2 .oeb .oeb.gz
Old OEBinary .bin

Old OEBinary format can be read but not written by Omega. Gzipped OEBinary version 2 (.oeb.gz) is the recommended output format.

Omega is also capable of piping formatted input and output. The simple "-" can be used in place of a file name to indicate std::cin or std::cout with the default SMILES format.

prompt> omega -in - -out -

This execution will run Omega with std::cin as the input with SMILES format. It will also open std::cout with SMILES format as output. However, the use of "-" does not allow control of the file format.

To control the format of std::cin and std::cout one may use the file extensions without a preceeding filename.

prompt> omega -in .ism -out .oeb.gz

This executes Omega with the input from std::cin formated in isomeric SMILES and the output sent to std::cout in gzipped OEBinary version 2 format.

3.1.3 Optional Input/Output Parameters

-fraglib
See description in Section 3.1.4. No longer required as of Omega 2.2. (Alias -setfraglib)

-addfraglib
See description in Section  3.1.4.

-commentEnergy
This flag causes the conformer energy to be written in the commment field for each conformer. This is particularly useful when writing SD or MOL2 files that will be passed to software that anticipates strain energies written in the comment field. [default = false]

-param
The argument for this flag is the name of a file containing control parameters. The control parameter file acts to either replace or augment the command line interface. All parameters necessary for program execution may be provided in the control parameter file, although any command given explicitly on the command line will supercede options found in the parameter file. Omega generates a new parameter file containing the full set of execution parameters upon every execution. The name of the parameter file written by Omega is created by combining the prefix base name (see -prefix) with the '.parm' extension.

-prefix
The argument for this flag defines the prefix to be used for various information and data files generated by Omega. Most important among these is the 'omega2.parm' file which includes a copy of all the parameters used in the Omega run. The prefix is also used to generate a default log file name if not explicitly specified with the -log (see -log) flag. [default = omega2].

-rotorOffsetCompress
This flag controls the behavior of writing the rotor offset compressed flavor of the OEBinary format. Rotor offset compressed files contain the same information as standard cartesian OEBinary files, but require a small fraction of the storage space. Optimal compression of Omega output can be obtained by writing GZip compressed OEBinary files with the -rotorOffsetCompress flag turned on. [default = true]

-sdEnergy
The -sdEnergy flag controls the behavior of writing strain energies as SD tags. This flag may be used with either OEBinary or MDL SD files. [default = false]

-log
The argument for this flag specifies the name of the log file. The level of detail for logfile information can be altered using the -verbose (see -verbose) flag. Output can be directed to the terminal instead of a file by giving a hyphen '-' as the argument to the flag instead of a filename. Generation of an output log may be disabled by providing 'nul' or 'null' as an arguement. [default = prefix.log]

-verbose
This is a boolean flag that controls the level of detail written to the log file. By default Omega will only write minimal information to the log file. Molecule titles and warning messages constitute the bulk of logging at the default level. Verbose logging will cause more information to be written to the log file in order to follow behavior during program execution. [default = false]

-warts
This boolean flag is used to generate unique titles for conformers that reflect their position in an ensemble of conformations produced by Omega. The title given to each conformer will begin with the molecule title taken from the input file, and appended with an underscore and the integer corresponding to the rank order number of the conformer in the final ensemble. [default = false]

-includeInput
When true this boolean flag will include the input conformer in the output file. This requires that the input file format is a 3D format (eg: SDF, MOL2, OEB, etc) [default = false]

 
3.1.4 3D Construction Parameters

-buildff
This flag sets the force field used for constructing fragments that are assembled to build an initial model of the input structure. The choice of force field will not affect geometries of structures taken from a file of pre-built fragments (see -fraglib), except in the positioning of protons attached to ring systems. Consult the description of Force Fields (Section 3.2) for an explanation of appropriate arguments for this flag. [default = mmff94s_NoEstat]

-canonOrder
This flag can be used to disable the automatic reordering of input molecules to a canonical atom and bond order. In order obtain consistent results from different file formats and different connection table orders, Omega reorders the input connection table. This behavior can be turned off using the -canonOrder flag, however, the resultant ensembles will likely be inconsistent in their composition. [default = true]

-deleteFixHydrogens
When a fixfile fragment is specified, all possible mappings (matches) of the fragment and the input molecule are considered for positioning the input molecule. This process begins with a substructure search of the fragment in the input molecule. If hydrogens are included on the fixfile fragment, the number of possible matches will grow exponentially with the number of equivalences. Each geminal hydrogen pair on the fixfile produces a non-productive match multiplied by all other non-productive matches. This flag can be used to prevent the explosion of non-productive matches by deleting hydrogens from the fixfile fragment prior to the substructure search. [default = false]

-dielectric
The argument to this flag allows the user to specify the dielectric applied to the coulomb term of the force field. This flag may only be used with a version of the search force field that includes the coulomb term, such as the MMFF94 and MMFF94s variants. [default = 1.0]

-exponent
The argument to this flag allows the user to specify the exponent applied to the inverse distance calculation of the coulomb term of the force field (i.e. r)^{X}$ where X is the argument to the -exponent flag). This flag may only be used with a version of the search force field that includes the coulomb term, such as the MMFF94 and MMFF94s variants. [default = 1.0]

-fixfile
The argument that follows this flag is a molecule file used to specify the coordinates for a substructure of the input molecules. An initial structure is generated for every input molecule, and then a substructure search is performed using the molecule or fragment provided in the fixfile as a query molecule. Every instance of the fixed substructure found in the input molecule up to a predetermined limit (see maxmatch and umatch) is used to replace the coordinates of the atoms that match the substructure. The input molecule coordinates are aligned relative to the substructure prior to fragment replacement, and then the coordinates are taken from the fixed fragment and assigned to the corresponding atoms of the input molecule. A separate alignment, replacement, and then conformer search is carried out for every matching substructure in the input molecule.

-fixrms
Fixfile fragments taken from crystallographic sources may differ in their geometry relative to optimal MMFF geometries. Omega attempts to superimpose built structures onto fixfile fragments, and if the geometry differs too greatly Omega considers the superposition a poor match and will fail to build a structure using the fixfile. This flag can be used to loosen the default RMS superposition criteria to allow suboptimal superpositions to succeed in spite of the poor geometric complementarity. [default = 0.15]

-setfraglib
The argument that follows this flag is an OEBinary molecule file containing the coordinates of pre-built acyclic fragments, and multiple conformations of cyclic systems. Starting with Omega 2.2, this flag is no longer required, as a default fragment library has been built into the program. Although Omega can generate fragment 3D geometries on the fly, building them in advance speeds execution significantly. Multiple fragment files may be provided as a comma delimited list of filenames. The fragment file(s) chosen should be constructed using a force field corresponding to the one being used for the torsion search. For example, the MMFF94s variant of the Merck Molecular Force Field should be used both for fragment construction and torsion search. Normally this file is build using the makefraglib auxilliary program.

-addfraglib
The argument that follows this flag is one or more fragment files, normally generated by makefraglib. These fragments will supplement the built-in fragment library (new in Omega 2.2).

-fromCT
This boolean flag determines whether Omega should generate an initial set of 3D coordinates using only the connection table of the input molecule. Initial model generation is always necessary for molecule file formats devoid of coordinates (i.e SMILES). Bond lengths and angles taken from molecule files containing coordinates may be retained by setting this flag to false. [default = true]

-maxmatch
The -maxmatch flag is used to limit the number of fixfile substructure matches in the input molecule. Each match will result in replacement of the matching substructure with coordinates taken from the fixfile fragment. The number of matches may need need to be limited using this parameter for a substructure where many matcches are possible. [default = 10]

-umatch
The -umatch boolean flag determines whether only the unique substructure matches of the fixfile are used for coordinate replacement. A unique substructure match is defined as a match that does not cover the identical set of target atoms as any other substructure match in a set. For example, a benzene substructure will match a benzene ring 12 times. Only one substructure match constitutes a unique match, while the other 11 matches are duplicates. If the flag is set to false then all possible substructure matches may be used for coordinate replacement. This behavior is usually unnecessary as non-unique matches will frequently lead to duplication. [default = true]

3.1.5 Structure Enumeration

-enumNitrogen
The -enumNitrogen boolean flag controls the behavior of Omega with respect to enumeration of non-planar nitrogens. Any nitrogen with pyramidal geometry in the initial model of the input molecule, and having no more than two ring bonds is considered by Omega to be 'invertible'. Omega will enumerate all possible puckers of all invertible nitrogens if the -enumNitrogens flag is set to true. [default = true]

-enumRing
The -enumRing boolean flag controls the behavior of Omega with respect to ring conformations. If this flag is set to true, Omega will generate all possible combinations of all ring conformations in a molecule. Ring systems with only a single conformation will be replaced with a conformation taken from a fragment file, or generated on the fly by Omega. If this flag is set to false then no ring conformer enumeration or replacement will occur. Initial geometries provided in by an input file (see -fromCT false) may therefore be preserved by setting -enumRing to false as well. [default = true]

3.1.6 Torsion Driving Parameters

-erange
The -erange flag sets the energy cutoff used as an accept or reject criteria for conformers depending on the number of rotatable bonds in the structure. Any conformer that has a calculated strain energy less than the sum of the energy window and the energy of the global minimum conformer will be accepted. Conformers with strain energies above this threshold are rejected. The energy range is given as a comma separated list of values that correspond to the -rangeIncrement parameter. For example, -erange ``5.0, 10.0, 15.0, 20.0'' used with -rangeIncrement 3 sets the energy window to 5.0 Kcal/mol for structures with zero to two rotatable bonds, 10.0 Kcal/mol for structures with three to five rotatable bonds, and so on. The energy window for structures with more rotors than the highest -erange value specified will taken as the highest specified value.

-ewindow
The -ewindow flag sets the energy window used as an accept or reject criteria for conformers. Any conformer that has a calculated strain energy less than the sum of the energy window and the energy of the global minimum conformer will be accepted. Conformers with strain energies above this threshold are rejected. [default = 10.0]

-maxconfs
The -maxconfs flag sets the maximum number of conformations to be generated. Conformers are assembled in energy sorted order of the contituent fragments. The default value in most cases will vastly exceed the number of conformers that need to be generated in order to select the best possible ensembled based on the RMS distance and energy criteria. As a special case, setting ``-maxconfs 0'' will result in Omega skipping the duplicate removal step and it will write all generated conformers to the output file. Note that this implies ``-rms 0'' is also used. [default = 400]

-maxConfRange
This string argument to this flag allows the user the specify the maximum number of conformers to be output for a structure based on the number of rotatable bonds in the structure. For example, -maxConfRange ``100,200'' used with -rangeIncrement 5 will cause Omega to output 100 conformers for structures with zero to 4 rotors, and 200 conformers for all structures with more than 4 rotors.

-maxconfgen
The -maxconfgen flag controls the number of fully constructed conformers that Omega will attempt to build. [default = 50000]

-maxrot
The -maxrot flag sets the maximum number of rotatable bonds cutoff. Molecules that have equal to or fewer rotors than the -maxrot cutoff will be processed by Omega. Omega will not search for conformers of molecules that have more rotors than the -maxrot cutoff. By default, Omega does not apply a number of rotatable bond cutoff. Instead, a desired cutoff must be supplied by the user. [default = -1]

-maxtime
This flag limits the amount of time (in seconds) spent generating conformers for each molecule. [default = 120.0]

-rangeIncrement
The -rangeIncrement is used to control the number of rotatable bonds range used with the -maxConfRange, -rmsrange, and -erange flags. The preceding flags are used to control the maximum number of conformers, RMS cutoff, and energy windows used that are dependent on the number of rotors in a given structure. [default = 5]

-rms
The -rms flag sets the minimum Root Mean Square (RMS) cartesian distance below which two conformers are duplicates. The RMS ccalculation is performed after superposition such that the true minimum distance between conformers is calculated. Lowering the -rms value may cause Omega to generate ensembles that contain more representative conformers of a similar shape. Higher -rms values may result in smaller, yet possibly more shape diverse ensembles. [default = 0.8]

-rmsrange
This string argument to this flag allows the user the specify the RMS cutoff used for duplicate conformer removal based on the number of rotatable bonds in the structure. For example, -rmsrange ``0.8,1.0'' used with -rangeIncrement 5 will cause Omega to use an RMS cutoff value of 0.8 for structures with zero to 4 rotors, and an RMS cutoff value of 1.0 for all structures with more than 4 rotatable bonds.

-searchff
This flag sets the force field used to calculate strain energies of conformers generated during a torsion search. Consult the description of Force Fields (Section 3.2) for an explanation of appropriate arguments for this flag. [default = mmff94s_NoEstat]

-torlib
The -torlib flag is used to specify the file name of the file containing rules used in resolution control of the torsion driving part of conformer generation. Refer to the section describing the format of the torsion library ( 3.3). If no torsion library is provided then Omega will use an internally stored copy of the default torsion library.