On 07/21/2010 07:24 AM, Nadir T. Mrabet wrote:
Hi,
This is for teaching purposes so that students can "walk" though 3D structures. Would it be possible to use Chimera via a 3D stereo beamer to project display on a very large screen and watch the selected structure in 3D by means of shutter glasses? If this is so, what kind of equipment would you recommend?
Many thanks,
Nadir
The short answer is yes, it is possible. For longer answers see recent postings on the chimera users list: <http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimera-users/2010-May/005145.html>, and <http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimera-users/2010-June/005297.html>. There will probably be some announcements of new stereo hardware at the SIGGRAPH conference next week, so the choices may change soon. And here's some generic advice about choosing a graphics card: The answer to your questions depends on what kind and what amount of data you're planning to view with chimera. For instance, if you're looking at volume data, large molecules, or trajectories, a graphics card with more memory would be important. And if you're looking at large molecules in ball and stick mode, doing volume calculations, or making movies, you'll want a fast CPU as well. And if you want the best 3D graphics in stereo, you'll need to get a workstation graphics card with a stereo DIN connector. So take a look at the chimera benchmarks page, http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/trac/chimera/wiki/benchmarks, to get an idea of the relative performance of graphics cards with chimera. You will see that we need more benchmarks from recent graphics cards (so whatever you get, please submit the chimera benchmarks for it). You will also see that the consumer graphics cards do very well with the Volume depictions. And that the workstations graphics cards generally do better with the Molecule scores, and that the Molecule scores are more dependent on the CPU speed than the Volume scores. You will also see that Linux systems tend to benchmark higher than Windows systems with the same hardware. Good luck, Greg