ABI Innovation: Building and sharing molecular visualizations with Molecular ViewBook

犹他大学被授予开发新的软件工具的赠款，这些工具将使研究人员能够创建和共享分子过程的准确和动态的可视分子模型。随着我们对分子机制的复杂性和动力学有了更深入的了解，对合成各种分子和细胞数据的建模工具的需求变得更加迫切。3D动画软件为这一需求提供了一个有吸引力的解决方案，但由于大多数3D图形应用程序的学习曲线很陡峭，因此只被一小部分研究人员采用。该项目旨在使研究人员能够创建他们所研究的分子过程的动态可视化，并与研究和教育界的其他人分享这些可视化。分子视书项目分为两个主要部分。首先是3D分子工具包，这是一套免费软件工具，允许用户在观看简短教程后，在开源动画软件包中开始创建分子动画。3D分子工具包将包括涵盖分子动画所有方面的模块，包括易于使用的工具，用于导入和操作结构数据，创建蛋白质模型的构象变化，以及动态构建更高阶的分子结构。第二个组件是分子视书网站(http://MolecularViewbook.org)，)，这是一个门户网站，使用户能够与其他人分享他们的动画和动画源代码。从分子视频书网站上，用户可以搜索其他用户创建的分子动画，并对这些动画进行修改以添加新的成分。分子动画越来越被认可并被用作向广泛的受众交流复杂分子机制的强大手段。在过去的几年里，我们见证了研究人员对能够创建动画的巨大且迅速增长的兴趣。为了帮助《分子视点书》的传播，这些研究人员将为研究人员举办地方和国家研讨会。他们还将推出一个面向高中和大学生物教育工作者和学生的教育门户网站，从而将我们的用户社区扩大到研究社区之外。

The University of Utah is awarded a grant to develop new software tools that will allow researchers to create and share accurate and dynamic visual molecular models of molecular processes. As we gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and dynamics of molecular mechanisms, the need for modeling tools that will synthesize diverse molecular and cellular data becomes more urgent. 3D animation software offers an attractive solution to this need, but has been adopted by only a small number of researchers due to the steep learning curve for most 3D graphics applications. This project seeks to enable researchers to create dynamic visualizations of the molecular processes they study, and to share these visualizations with others in the research and educational communities. The Molecular ViewBook project is broken into two major components. First, the 3D Molecular Toolkit, a suite of free software tools that will allow users to start creating molecular animations in an open-source animation software package after viewing a short tutorial. The 3D Molecular Toolkit will include modules that cover all aspects of molecular animation, including easy-to-use tools to import and manipulate structural data, create conformational changes in protein models, and dynamically build higher-order molecular structures. The second component is the Molecular ViewBook website (http://MolecularViewbook.org), a portal which will enable users to share their animations and animation source codes with others. From the Molecular ViewBook website, users can search for molecular animations that other users have created, and modify these animations to add new components.Molecular animations are increasingly recognized and utilized as a powerful means to communicate complex molecular mechanisms to a wide variety of audiences. In the past several years, we have witnessed a large and rapidly growing interest amongst researchers to be able to create animations. To aid in the dissemination of the Molecular ViewBook, these investigators will conduct local and national workshops for researchers. They will also introduce an Educational Portal that will target biology educators and students at the high school and college levels, thereby expanding our user community beyond the scope of the research community.