title: Using a commodity high-definition television for collaborative structural biology.
abstract: Visualization of protein structures using stereoscopic systems is frequently needed by structural biologists working to understand a protein's structure-function relationships. Often several scientists are working as a team and need simultaneous interaction with each other and the graphics representations. Most existing molecular visualization tools support single-user tasks, which are not suitable for a collaborative group. Expensive caves, domes or geowalls have been developed, but the availability and low cost of high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and game controllers in the commodity entertainment market provide an economically attractive option to achieve a collaborative environment. This paper describes a low-cost environment, using standard consumer game controllers and commercially available stereoscopic HDTV monitors with appropriate signal converters for structural biology collaborations employing existing binary distributions of commonly used software packages likeCoot,PyMOL,Chimera,VMD,O,Olex2and others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Ragothaman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yennamalli
authors.affiliation: The Raj Organization, Henderson, Nevada 89074, USA.
authors.forename: Raj
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arangarasan
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA ; Praxik LLC, 2701 Kent Avenue, Suite 130, Ames, Iowa 50014, USA.
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bryden
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gleicher
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: George N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Phillips
keywords: collaborative structural biology; protein structure visualization