title: iview: an interactive WebGL visualizer for protein-ligand complex.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Visualization of protein-ligand complex plays an important role in elaborating protein-ligand interactions and aiding novel drug design. Most existing web visualizers either rely on slow software rendering, or lack virtual reality support. The vital feature of macromolecular surface construction is also unavailable.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We have developed iview, an easy-to-use interactive WebGL visualizer of protein-ligand complex. It exploits hardware acceleration rather than software rendering. It features three special effects in virtual reality settings, namely anaglyph, parallax barrier and oculus rift, resulting in visually appealing identification of intermolecular interactions. It supports four surface representations including Van der Waals surface, solvent excluded surface, solvent accessible surface and molecular surface. Moreover, based on the feature-rich version of iview, we have also developed a neat and tailor-made version specifically for our istar web platform for protein-ligand docking purpose. This demonstrates the excellent portability of iview.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Using innovative 3D techniques, we provide a user friendly visualizer that is not intended to compete with professional visualizers, but to enable easy accessibility and platform independence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. jackyleehongjian@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Hongjian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Kwong-Sak
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakane
authors.forename: Man-Hon
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D003196:Computer Graphics; D020407:Internet; D008024:Ligands; D062105:Molecular Docking Simulation / Q000379:methods*; D011485:Protein Binding; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface
chemical_list: D008024:Ligands; D011506:Proteins