Protein Insight is a outstanding software that allows you to visualize protein structures. A the Microsoft Direct3D and the Microsoft .net framework based protein structure visualization platform. Because Protein Insight completely utilize a vertex shader
and a pixel shader, Protein Insight has very fast rendering speed although it has high quality rendering. Protein Insight is also highly extensible with a plug-ins. The plug-ins can be written in C#, Visual Basic, C++/CLI and other languages supported by the
.net framework.
The screenshot of the ProteinInsight. It displays virus capid of PDBID 3OAH(http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=3OAH)
Protein Insight Features:
1. Select, Store and Visualization:
A method for protein visualization in Protein Insight is very easy and intuitive. First, you can select atoms, residues, chains and/or PDBs. Second, a selected group is called a Visual Part(VP). The VP is stored in the VP list. Last, each VP is visualized on
the 3D visualization pane. In this picture, three visualization parts are displayed, surface display style, ribbon display style and ball-and-stick display style. Each VP has their own visualization properties to change style.
2. High Quality Real-time Rendering:
Each VP in the VP list can be rendered with many rendering options. Each VP is rendered with one of visualization method such as wireframe, ball, ball and stick, space fill, ribbon or surface. Each visualization method has its own rendering options such as
color scheme, model and render quality, clipping planes, transparency and so on.
Following six pictures show PDB ID 3O4A; Stick model, ball-and-stick model, ribbon model, space-fill model, two types of surface model.
Protein Insight supports real-time rendering and ray-tracing rendering with POV-Ray(http://www.povray.org/). Left Image(PDB id: 1A6D) is rendered by POV-RAY and rendering time is about 1
min 30 seconds. Right image is rendered in realtime(over 10fps) in the Poritein Insight.
Left image (PDB id: 2KXW) is rendered by POV-RAY and rendering time is 18 second. Right image is rendered by Protein Insight in realtime.
The ProteinInsight has many visualization option for each visualization style. PDB id 2KXW is displayed.
|
Progressive color of
Ribbon modeld
|
Partial atom display of
surface model
|
Space-Fill model and
ball-and-stick model
|
|
Various color scheme of
surface model
|
Text Annotation
|
Clipping Plane
|
The protein insight supports PDBs which have many chains and models. It can show each chains and models indiviually.
|
PDB id 3LUE with 20 chains.
|
PDB id 2KXW with 21 models
with Ribbon display model
|
The protein insight supports biounit model in virus capsid. All are PDB id 3MGE and its biounit model with various visualization method.
- support global illumination such as shading and ambient occlusion. 2WFF model
- DNA
3. Highly Extensible Plug-Ins:
Protein Insight supports highly extensible plug-ins. The plug-ins are .net assembly and made with Protein Insight or a .net compiler such as Microsoft Visual Studio. The plug-in can be written in C#, Visual Basic, C++/CLI and other languages supported
by the .net framework.
4. Creating High Quality Movie:
Protein Insight can generate a high-quality movie. The movie size can be larger than 800x600 and in SD or a HD quality movie. In the plug-in program, you can take screenshots and then make the movie with them. Here is an example of a plug-in software and the
resultant movie.
5. Visualization Properties:
Each VP has its own visualization properties. Therefore, you can easily modify many visualization options in a property pane.
6. Tree View and Residue View Pane:
In Protein Insight, there are tree view and residue view panes. Each pane is useful for selecting the atoms, residues, chains and/or PDBs and showing them. Selected atoms in the tree view, residue view and 3D visualization pane are fully synchronized.