iMolecular Visualisation System - iMVS
iMVS is a simple molecular visualisation system (app) for viewing proteins in 3D.
The project is a primarily hobbiest approach to learning Apple Swift rather than a serious molecular viewing tool.
It is a reimplementation of my 1999 dissertation software Java3D Molecular Visualisation System (JMVS), also intended to learn and demonstrate Java3D rather than be a serious molecular tool.
It is built for iOS using Apple's Swift language. It uses SceneKit
Use of iMVS sources
iMVS is released under the MIT Licence.
My hopes in open sourcing this code are
- To contribute to the growing body of Swift source in the wild to help others learn.
- To find those who would like to contribute to the roadmap for iMVS, ideally improving it, thereby enabling me to learn from others.
Roadmap
The immediate plans for iMVS are as follows:
- General. Much needs to be done polishing the UI, providing tickers when molecule bonds are being computed, providing a better display/colour mode switching UI.
- Display modes. Currently working on Cartoons mode starting with ribbons for alpha helices and beta sheets.
- Colour modes. CPK and amino modes are already done. Need to add temperature.
- Networking. Rather than provide a limited list of PDB molecule files in the app, reach out to the PDB web services.
- Performance. Specifically in the realm of bonding, I have used my own "point cloud" implementation that is a lot faster than linear atom to atom testing but this could be improved still further, possibly using Octree/KD-tree type implementation
- Persistence. Come up with ways to save PDB files from the web services. Perhaps also persist/cache computed bond data to speed subsequent loads of a molecule.