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posted by mrpg on Tuesday July 17 2018, @01:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-that's-useful dept.

Submitted via IRC for takyon

University of Bristol researchers have designed and tested a new virtual reality (VR) cloud-based system intended to allow researchers to reach out and "touch" molecules as they move — folding them, knotting them, plucking them, and changing their shape to test how the molecules interact. Using an HTC Vive virtual-reality device, it could lead to creating new drugs and materials and improving the teaching of chemistry.

[...] The multi-user system, developed by a team led by University of Bristol chemists and computer scientists, uses an "interactive molecular dynamics virtual reality" (iMD VR) app that allows users to visualize and sample (with atomic-level precision) the structures and dynamics of complex molecular structures "on the fly" and to interact with other users in the same virtual environment.

Source: Discovering new drugs and materials by 'touching' molecules in virtual reality


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:43AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:43AM (#708187)

    After the IBM 360 and The Mythical Man-Month, Dr. Fred Brooks turned into an academic studying user interface and real problems -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks [wikipedia.org]

    From the U. North Carolina site:
    http://wwwx.cs.unc.edu/~eve/home/ [unc.edu]

    Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. receives the 2010 IEEE Virtual Reality Career Award!
    March 25th, 2010

    Congratulations to Prof. Brooks!

    The text accompanying the award states, “The 2010 Virtual Reality Career Award goes to Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for his lifetime contributions to virtual reality research and practice.

    For over three decades Fred Brooks has led a laboratory that fosters scientific inquiry and technical advances in virtual reality to provide effective solutions to real user problems. The demands of molecular modeling and docking applications led to many innovations in 3D interaction, especially in developing and using haptic feedback. His recent work has contributed to our understanding of design tradeoffs in immersive virtual reality systems that effect the quality of the user’s experience.”

    Among other things, he had a low powered force feedback joystick (previous name for a haptic interface) working with molecular modeling--I think as early as the late 1980s (couldn't find a reference with a date for when his lab started on this). I knew about this because good friend did a PhD with him at about that time.

    I wonder what innovations this new system offers in addition to being in the cloud...(well, I'm sure it has better graphics than were possible in the late 1980s).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @05:28AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @05:28AM (#708221)

    The thing I got out of those management seminars is that if we needed a baby in a month, we had to hire nine women.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:52AM (#708651)

      Obviously you didn't go to Fred Brooks' seminars...