Abstract
In this paper we discuss and show how virtual reality (VR) working over the World Wide Web (WWW) can be used by chemists and biochemists as an extremely powerful tool in analyzing data and disseminating information and for interactive learning. Examples are presented of how VR is being used to investigate and visualize otherwise complex data. The program Builder v1.2, which is an interactive WWW program that illustrates the integration of Web and VR technologies, is described. The VRML language is used to build these virtual realities and is an acronym for the Virtual Reality Modelling Language. VRML was developed originally by Gavin Bell, Anthony Parisi and Mark Pesce and is based upon Silicon Graphics, Inc. successful Open Inventor graphics language. It is used to describe scenes that are displayed within a VRML viewer. But VRML is not an ordinary graphics language because it was designed to work within the World Wide Web by including aspects of a hypertext language. Thus objects in a scene may be hyperlinks to other virtual worlds, WWW pages or MIME types, allowing the viewer to navigate the Internet in a virtual reality and it is this aspect that is explored here in relation to chemistry. Builder v1.2 is an on-line utility to create customized, 3-D models of membranes using a WWW forms interface and was one of the very first examples of interactive scene creation with VRML. The user may choose components to go in the membrane from a range of proteins, cholesterol or a glycoprotein and then specify their location in the membrane. The 3-D scene may be supplied at several levels of detail, including a full sphere representation suitable for high-end workstations, and a simple, minimum-rendering format ideal for PCs. The coordinates of the components may be downloaded in PDB format; the VRML scene has the components all hyperlinked to Web pages describing their function. In conclusion, VRML provides a medium through which data that is too difficult to portray in 2-D may be analyzed and published. This illustrates clearly the benefits of the Internet as a future scientific publishing medium and a repository for supplementary and enhanced material to traditional printed journal information.
Published Version
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