DNA <i>in Virtuo</i> visualization and exploration of 3D genomic structures

Abstract

In this paper, we address the potential offered by Virtual Reality and scientific simulation for 3D modeling and immersive visualization of huge genomic sequences. Advanced work on 3D data modeling and structuring is proposed. In Bioinformatics, DNA sequences are often represented within linear format. However, they also have a three-dimensional structure potentially suitable for genomic analysis. The representation of such 3D structure allows biologists to observe and analyze genomes in an interactive way at different levels: from gene to chromosome. We developed a powerful software platform that provides a new point of view for sequences analysis: <i>ADN-Viewer</i>. Nevertheless, a classical eukaryotic chromosome of 40 million base pairs requires about 6 Gbytes of 3D data. In order to manage these huge masses of data in real-time, we designed various scene management algorithms and immersive human-computer interaction for <i>user-friendly</i> data exploration.