@C01259@ consists of the exploration of energetically favourable spatial arrangements (shapes) of a molecule (conformations) using molecular mechanics, @M03985@, quantum chemical calculations or analysis of experimentally-determined structural data, e.g, NMR or crystal structures.
Molecular mechanics and quantum chemical methods are employed to compute conformational energies, whereas systematic and random searches, Monte Carlo, @M03985@, and distance geometry are methods (often combined with energy minimization procedures) used to explore the conformational space.