Announcement and Call for Papers

Interactive Molecular Visualization

Track Co-Chairs:
Michael Teschner and Chris Henn

Background

In the past, structure determination itself was a significant challenge. Today, we have an arsenal of methods avaliable, such as X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy, each one with its strengths and drawbacks. Collectively, they may answer the question: "How does this particualr molecule look like?". But the task of integrating all the information obtained by the various methods into a coherent and conclusive picture remains the domain of computer-aided visualization, in form of interactive inspection of complex three-dimensional scenarios.

So far, molecular visualization focused on representing structure. The significance of representing the structure itself, however, is about to fade out as we get more and more interested in interpreting molecular structure beyond the level of atomic coordinates, to answer questions such as: "How and why does this particular molecule perform its biological function?" And once again, molecular visualization is the answering device.

With novel techniques for functional molecular analysis, such as fast surface generation, property mapping, information filtering or volume rendering, a new age of molecular visualization and a new role for the supporting hardware architectures is about to begin. Recent hardware development trends exhibit the emerging of two distinct strategies with separate but related tasks. On the high-end, increased troughput and functionality is the goal, to allow for larger molecular system sizes or longer dynamics runs. At the low-end, the main focus is to review results obtained by others, to compare, to communicate and to educate. Information resources such as the world-wide web seem to provide a fruitful environment for chemical and biological information sharing.

Purpose

The minitrack on "Interactive Molecular Visualization" will highlight the various aspects of modern molecular graphics techniques and provide a forum for discussion of visionary ideas and challenging questions, or an opportunity to present down to the ground solved molecular problems using original visualization techniques:

During the sessions, high-end as well as low-end systems will be available for live demonstrations in front of the audience. In addition, a demo room will be equipped with systems to load software for interactive discussion during the breaks.

Paper Submission

All paper submissions will be peer-reviewed, and accepted papers will be published in an archival proceedings volume. Paper publication is required for oral presentation. Researchers wishing to present their research without official publication are encouraged to submit an abstract for the poster or demonstration sessions.

Deadlines

For accellerated review, papers, abstracts and demonstration concepts may be submitted by referring to a http location that points to the proposed content. Once this http pointer has been submitted, the pages should no longer be modified.

To submit papers, abstracts or demonstrations, or for any questions related to the "Interactive Molecular Visualization" minitrack, please contact the session co-chairs: