Nanoscapes: Authentic scales and densities in real-time 3D cinematic visualizations of cellular landscapes

Abstract

3D computer-animated representations of complex biological systems and environments are often vastly oversimplified. There are a number of key reasons: to highlight a distinct biological mechanism of interest; technical limitations of hardware and software computer graphics (CG) capabilities; and a lack of data regarding cellular environments. This oversimplification perpetuates a naive understanding of fundamental cellular dynamics and topologies. This work attempts to address these challenges through the development of a first-person interactive virtual environment that more authentically depicts molecular scales, densities and interactions in real-time. Driven by a collaboration between scientists, CG developers and 3D computer artists, Nanoscapes utilizes the latest CG advances in real-time pipelines to construct a cinematic 3D environment that better communicates the complexity associated with the cellular surface and nanomedicine delivery to the cell.