YASARA View—molecular graphics for all devices—from smartphones to workstations

TLDR

Modern GPUs render molecular scenes by composing individual triangles, but representing a single atom requires about 320 triangles, so visualizing large proteins with atomic detail demands tens of millions of triangles, which is too many for smooth interactive frame rates. The study aims to solve the molecular graphics problem by distributing rendering work between GPU and multiple CPU cores. The approach achieves high‑quality, perfectly round spheres, shadows, and ambient lighting using only OpenGL 1.0, without pixel shader Z‑buffer access, by sharing work between GPU and CPU cores. YASARA View, implementing this algorithm, is freely available for Linux, macOS, Windows, and Android (Intel) at www.YASARA.org. Contact [e-mail]; supplementary data are available online at Bioinformatics.

Abstract

Abstract Summary: Today's graphics processing units (GPUs) compose the scene from individual triangles. As about 320 triangles are needed to approximate a single sphere—an atom—in a convincing way, visualizing larger proteins with atomic details requires tens of millions of triangles, far too many for smooth interactive frame rates. We describe a new approach to solve this ‘molecular graphics problem’, which shares the work between GPU and multiple CPU cores, generates high-quality results with perfectly round spheres, shadows and ambient lighting and requires only OpenGL 1.0 functionality, without any pixel shader Z -buffer access (a feature which is missing in most mobile devices). Availability and implementation: YASARA View, a molecular modeling program built around the visualization algorithm described here, is freely available (including commercial use) for Linux, MacOS, Windows and Android (Intel) from www.YASARA.org . Contact: [e-mail] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.