<p>The exhaustive enumeration of 3D chemical
structures based on Z-matrix templates has recently been used in the quantum
chemical investigation of constitutional isomers, diastereomers and rotamers.
This simple yet powerful initial structure generation approach can apply beyond
the investigation of compounds of identical formula by quantum chemical
methods. This paper aims to provide a short description of the overall concept
followed by a practical tutorial to the approach. </p>
<p>· - The four
steps required for Z-matrix template-based substitution are template
construction, generation of tuples for substitution sites, removal of duplicate
tuples and substitution on the template. </p>
<p>· -The
generated tuples can be used to create chemical identifiers to query compound
properties from chemical databases. </p>
<p>· - All of
these steps are demonstrated in this paper by common model compounds and are
very straightforward for an undergraduate audience to reproduce. A comparison
of the approach in this tutorial and other options is also discussed.<b></b></p><br>