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Molecular Rendering on IBM personal computers
Abstracts from the Molecular Graphics Society Workshop on Desktop Molecular Visualization The Molecular Graphics Society Workshop on Desktop Molecular Visualization was held in Bethesda, Maryland, from 23 to 25 August 1990. The abstracts from the meeting are collected below.
Network computation
servers
Molecular Rendering on IBM Personal Computers F. Marchese Computer Graphics Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Pace University, New York, NY 10038, USA High-quality molecular rendering on microcomputers remains a chalienge. We present our experiences with rendering shaded intersecting sphere models of molecules on low-resolution frame buffers, with a high degree of color quantization, to determine the effectiveness of using a standard microcomputer to display molecular representations. We have found that excellent shaded-sphere renderings can be obtained, given a microcomputer system based on an Intef 80286 microprocessor, with an EGA or VGA color graphics adaptor. Moreover, the time required to generate these images is comparable to that required for similar procedures implemented on a VAX 1 l/780. Our presentation focuses on algorithms for hidden-surface removal and rendering, particularly the z-buffer algorithm and dithering methods. Issues covered include speed, image quality and software implementation.
Flex: A Light-Weight Molecular Display Program Michael E. Pique, Thomas J. Macke and Andrew S. Arvai Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA We have written Flex, a molecular display program that can be readily ported to new graphics env~onments because of its small size and simplicity and can take advantage of computational resources available on a network. Flex is a three-dimensional display server that displays atoms and bonds passed to it over socket connections from client programs running on tbe same, or different, computers. Ver-
40
J. Mol. Graphics,
1991, Vol. 9, March
Figure 1. Sun workstation running Flex under X.1 I with the AT&T OPEN LOOK graphical user inter$ace sions of Flex, largely sharing a common C-language source, run on machines from A&ant Raster Technologies, both the former Stellar and Ardent lines from Stardent, and all Sun workstations ranging from the monochrome diskless SPARCstation SLC to the Sun TAAC- 1. Flex usually runs as at least two processes. An interactive front-end client program accepts user keyboard commands to read Protein Data Bank files and to display and color
Q 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann
Network computation
servers
Molecular Rendering on IBM Personal Computers F. Marchese Computer Graphics Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Pace University, New York, NY 10038, USA High-quality molecular rendering on microcomputers remains a chalienge. We present our experiences with rendering shaded intersecting sphere models of molecules on low-resolution frame buffers, with a high degree of color quantization, to determine the effectiveness of using a standard microcomputer to display molecular representations. We have found that excellent shaded-sphere renderings can be obtained, given a microcomputer system based on an Intef 80286 microprocessor, with an EGA or VGA color graphics adaptor. Moreover, the time required to generate these images is comparable to that required for similar procedures implemented on a VAX 1 l/780. Our presentation focuses on algorithms for hidden-surface removal and rendering, particularly the z-buffer algorithm and dithering methods. Issues covered include speed, image quality and software implementation.
Flex: A Light-Weight Molecular Display Program Michael E. Pique, Thomas J. Macke and Andrew S. Arvai Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA We have written Flex, a molecular display program that can be readily ported to new graphics env~onments because of its small size and simplicity and can take advantage of computational resources available on a network. Flex is a three-dimensional display server that displays atoms and bonds passed to it over socket connections from client programs running on tbe same, or different, computers. Ver-
40
J. Mol. Graphics,
1991, Vol. 9, March
Figure 1. Sun workstation running Flex under X.1 I with the AT&T OPEN LOOK graphical user inter$ace sions of Flex, largely sharing a common C-language source, run on machines from A&ant Raster Technologies, both the former Stellar and Ardent lines from Stardent, and all Sun workstations ranging from the monochrome diskless SPARCstation SLC to the Sun TAAC- 1. Flex usually runs as at least two processes. An interactive front-end client program accepts user keyboard commands to read Protein Data Bank files and to display and color
Q 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann