title: MoFlow: visualizing conformational changes in molecules as molecular flow improves understanding.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Current visualizations of molecular motion use a Timeline-analogous representation that conveys "first the molecule was shaped like this, then like this...". This scheme is orthogonal to the Pathline-like human understanding of motion "this part of the molecule moved from here to here along this path". We present MoFlow, a system for visualizing molecular motion using a Pathline-analogous representation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The MoFlow system produces high-quality renderings of molecular motion as atom pathlines, as well as interactive WebGL visualizations, and 3D printable models. In a preliminary user study, MoFlow representations are shown to be superior to canonical representations for conveying molecular motion.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pathline-based representations of molecular motion are more easily understood than timeline representations. Pathline representations provide other advantages because they represent motion directly, rather than representing structure with inferred motion.
authors.affiliation: The Ohio State University Department of Periodontology, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Shareef M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Dabdoub
authors.affiliation: The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: R Wolfgang
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Rumpf
authors.affiliation: The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Amber D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Shindhelm
authors.affiliation: The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: William C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Ray
keywords: Molecular Conformation; Molecular Dynamics; Molecular Structural Biology; Visualization