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Distributed, Immersive and Multi-platform Molecular Visualization for Chemistry Learning

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2017 (ICCSA 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 10404))

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Abstract

This paper presents Dimmol (acronym for Distributed Immersive Multi-platform Molecular visualization), a scientific visualization application based on UnityMol, developed with the Unity game engine, and that uses the Unity Cluster Package to enable distributed and immersive visualization of molecular structures across multiple device of different types, with support to Google VR, molecular trajectory files, and master-host-slave rendering. Its goal is to improve and facilitate the way educators and researchers visualize molecular structures with students and partners. In order to demonstrate a possible use scenario for Dimmol, better understand the contributions of each platform it can be executed in, and gather performance data, three molecular visualizations are loaded on it and distributed to a graphic cluster, a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone. Other possible uses are also discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Oculus Rift: https://www.oculus.com/rift/.

  2. 2.

    Google Cardboard: https://vr.google.com/cardboard/.

  3. 3.

    Kinect for Xbox 360: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/accessories/kinect.

  4. 4.

    Second Life: http://secondlife.com.

  5. 5.

    UnityMol: http://www.baaden.ibpc.fr/umol/.

  6. 6.

    UnityMol official repository: https://github.com/bam93/UnityMol-Releases.

  7. 7.

    Unity3D: https://unity3d.com.

  8. 8.

    Worldwide Protein Data Bank: http://www.wwpdb.org.

  9. 9.

    Dimmol repository: https://github.com/LuizSSB/dimmol.

  10. 10.

    XYZ (format): http://openbabel.org/wiki/XYZ.

  11. 11.

    GAMESS: http://www.msg.chem.iastate.edu/index.html.

  12. 12.

    Abalone: http://www.biomolecular-modeling.com/Abalone/index.html.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the CAPES Foundation, a body of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, for financial support. Luiz Soares dos Santos Baglie was recipient of scholarship from CAPES.

The authors would also like to thank Paulo Noronha Lisboa Filho, Ph.D., and Francisco Carlos Lavarda, Ph.D., from the Physics Department of FC/UNESP, for their valuable feedback and suggestions during this study.

The copyright for UnityMol is held by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France. UnityMol is developed by FvNano/LBT Team, and Marc Baaden, Ph.D. The source-code for version 0.9.3 of the software was downloaded from the official public repository.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Department, School of Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Bauru, SP, Brazil

    Luiz Soares dos Santos Baglie & José Remo Ferreira Brega

  2. Federal Institute of São Paulo (IFSP), Araraquara, SP, Brazil

    Mário Popolin Neto

  3. Open University of Brazil-UNIFESP/Faccamp’s Master Program, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Marcelo de Paiva Guimarães

Authors
  1. Luiz Soares dos Santos Baglie
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  2. Mário Popolin Neto
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  3. Marcelo de Paiva Guimarães
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  4. José Remo Ferreira Brega
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luiz Soares dos Santos Baglie .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  2. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  3. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  4. University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Giuseppe Borruso

  5. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo M. Torre

  6. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A.C. Rocha

  7. Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    David Taniar

  8. Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  9. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Stankova

  10. University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Alfredo Cuzzocrea

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dos Santos Baglie, L.S., Neto, M.P., de Paiva Guimarães, M., Brega, J.R.F. (2017). Distributed, Immersive and Multi-platform Molecular Visualization for Chemistry Learning. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2017. ICCSA 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10404. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62392-4_41

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62392-4_41

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