Virtual reality prototyping of bio-molecules

Modelling, sharing and transmission of three-dimensional (3D) graphics data of biomolecules are essential in many bio visualization tasks from collaborative research and education to molecular simulation and drug discovery. In the current paper, modelling and representing of bio-molecular structure for virtual and physical rapid prototyping is presented. Our aim is to devise a uniform solution for visualizing, browsing, interacting and prototyping of bio-molecules in various environments including internet, immersive virtual reality (VR), and rapid manufacturing. To do so, we use non uniform rational B-spline surfaces (NURBS) to represent protein secondary structure and surface structure. NURBS protein structures are then tessellated to form bio-molecular graphics models. Their triangular mesh representation is next extracted from their scene graph. A geometric optimization process is followed to make data compatible for their formatting in compact and consistent VR standard to support protein internet browsing, protein VR visualization, protein 3D rapid prototyping and crystal sub-surface laser engraving.