YASARA View - molecular graphics for all devices - from smartphones to workstations.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 24996895.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1093/bioinformatics/btu426 and PMC identifier 4184264.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Today's graphics processing units (GPUs) compose the scene from individual triangles. As about 320 triangles are needed to approximate a single sphere-an atom-in a convincing way, visualizing larger proteins with atomic details requires tens of millions of triangles, far too many for smooth interactive frame rates. We describe a new approach to solve this 'molecular graphics problem', which shares the work between GPU and multiple CPU cores, generates high-quality results with perfectly round spheres, shadows and ambient lighting and requires only OpenGL 1.0 functionality, without any pixel shader Z-buffer access (a feature which is missing in most mobile devices). YASARA View, a molecular modeling program built around the visualization algorithm described here, is freely available (including commercial use) for Linux, MacOS, Windows and Android (Intel) from www.YASARA.org. elmar@yasara.org Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Medical subject headings
- Cell Phone
- Computer Graphics
- Computers
- Models, Molecular