Improving collaborative visualization of structural biology

Abstract

Structural biology is the study of how molecular shape, chemistry and physics connect to biological function. This work is inherently multidisciplinary and co-located group discussions are a key part of the work as participants need to refer to and study visualizations of the molecule's shape and properties. In this paper, we present the design and initial assessment of CollabMOL, a collaborative molecular visualization tool specifically designed to support small to medium size groups working with a large stereo display. We present a task analysis for co-located collaborative work in structural biology in which we find shortcomings in existing practice as well as key requirements of an appropriate solution. In this paper we present our design of this solution and an observation based user study to validate its effectiveness. Our design incorporates large stereo display support, commodity input devices and displays, and an extension to an existing molecular visualization tool. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.