[Chimera-users] 3D Viewing Collaboration

[Tom Goddard]

Hi Jeremy,

  We are interested in molecular visualization with virtual reality headsets and have been trying it for a couple years with Oculus Rift developer kits 1 and 2 with our next generation ChimeraX software.  Here's a description of what we tried a few years ago:

	http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/data/oculus-jan2014/oculus.html <http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/data/oculus-jan2014/oculus.html>

We have not tried augmented reality offered by Microsoft HoloLens where you see both your natural surroundings with elements like giant molecules added by the computer.  (Discouraging that their developer kit is so expensive, $3000, oculus dk1 was $300). I don't have a clear idea why viewing molecules in our natural surroundings makes sense.  I guess for a classroom where all the students have headsets it allows the students to see each other so it would be better for discussion.  A basic element would be that all the headsets would be viewing the same scene, although they are probably each connected to a separate computer.  So a challenge of implementing this is syncing the scene across multiple computers.  A start-up company in San Francisco called High Fidelity is making an open source multiplayer virtual reality platform to do this kind of thing and I saw a demo a month ago but using immersive headsets where you don't see your surroundings.  Each participant has a human-like  avatar that others can see in the scene.

  Our ChimeraX software is not yet released but it can do the needed stereoscopic rendering.  But maybe what you need is instead molecular models exported in 3d format to use in custom software you write to coordinate the views of multiple participants.  I'm happy to help.  Tell me what you envision our role would be in your project.

	Tom


> On Jun 29, 2016, at 8:05 AM, Provance, Jeremy wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> My name is Jeremy and I work at the University of Missouri—Kansas City School of Medicine. To cut to the chase, we’re doing R&D work with Microsoft HoloLens as it applies to medicine in both macroscopic (telemedicine) and molecular (pharmaceutical compound visualization and manipulation) applications. 
> 
> I’ve been using Chimera for some time in my academic explorations and wanted to contact you all to start a conversation about how we might collaborate to make molecular manipulation in 3D a reality. I’m imagining importing a protein and coloring areas of polarity and hydrophobicity, real-time, as the protein floats in the space of a classroom, as the proof of concept. Let me know if this is something you all would be interested in working together on.
> 
> Jeremy
> -----
> Jeremy Provance <https://twitter.com/jeremyprovance> | Software Analyst, Center for Health Insights <http://chi.umkc.edu/>
> 2411 Holmes Street, Kansas City, MO 64108 | MG-204A 
> (816) 235-1938 | provancej at umkc.edu <mailto:provancej at umkc.edu>
> 
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