Illustrations of the famous ``Double Helix'' of Watson and Crick have become an integral part of our culture. This journal currently features such an image (generated by Jane Burridge) as its cover page.
The method given here attempts to model the solid surface of complementary DNA strands using parametric surface patches rather than individual atoms. The work is in part motivated by a desire to illustrate simulations of super-coiled DNA, where the computational model does not employ individual atoms (1,2). Color and texture mappings may be applied to these patches to present chemical information.
The author is indebted to the drawings of Irving Geis (eg, in standard texts (3)) and the crystallographic work of Dickerson's group (4). This method is similar in spirit, though not in style, to that of Lesk and Lesk (5) who employed iconic line drawings.