Case study: An environment for understanding protein simulations using game graphics

Abstract

We describe a visualization system designed for interactive study of proteins in the field of computational biology. Our system incorporates multiple, custom, three-dimensional and two-dimensional linked views of the proteins. We take advantage of modern commodity graphics cards, which are typically designed for games rather than scientific visualization applications, to provide instantaneous linking between views and three-dimensional interactivity on standard personal computers. Furthermore, we anticipate the usefulness of game techniques such as bump maps and skinning for scientific applications.