I’ve been working a series of videos called ‘Modeling Molecules,’ the goal of which is to show how to make a ball and stick model of a strand of DNA helix in Sketchup. The above picture shows my progress so far: I’ve got the nucleobases done (left), and now I’m trying to attach a deoxyribose molecule (right). The problem is, how do I line up the molecules so that the bonds are properly oriented in three dimensions?

I’ve got an idea, which I’ll try out tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you’d like to check out the series of videos:

(And yes, I know, Sketchup is no longer owned by Google.)