COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING RIGIDITY OF SUBSTRUCTURES WITHIN A MACROMOLECULE

A computer-implemented system and method is provided for analyzing the rigidity of substructures within a molecule represented as atomic coordinate and bond data. The system includes a preprocessor for selectively eliminating from the data those bonds below a predetermined strength to thereby generate filtered data. The system also has a data structure for representing the filtered data as a network of vertices and constraints from which rigidity information is inferred. A topography processor is provided for extracting the rigidity information from the network and constructing an index data structure to represent the extracted rigidity information. The system also includes an analyzer coupled to the index data structure for identifying rigid and floppy substructures within the molecule based on the indices.