Re: [chimerax-users] VR Support

Hi Gökhan, ISOLDE works in VR in a minimal way -- you can tug on atoms. Here's a little video showing that in ChimeraX 1.1. https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/data/isolde-vr-mar2021/isolde_vr.mp4 I turned off depth cue and clipping with commands "light depthcue off" and "clip off" otherwise it clips to a slab which keeps moving as I move my head. I click a VR button on the ISOLDE panel tug atoms mouse mode icon to assign the VR button. I wouldn't say this makes ISOLDE usable in VR. For instance I don't have a way to move the roaming contour mesh region which normally stays in the middle of the screen. But it is enough to play around a bit. I was using a GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. Both the VR and ISOLDE molecular dynamics are running on the graphics card so this puts heavy demand on the card. For simulating just a region around a residue it was reasonably smooth. I would like to make ISOLDE work well in VR. I think it is the perfect VR application where you really benefit from the best 3D perception possible and the 6-degree-of-freedom hand controllers for moving atoms around is much better suited than a mouse. I recommend against using an Nvidia Quadro card -- almost no one uses those and so the graphics drivers tend to be worse, and the performance tends to be worse than the consumer cards, and for that you pay 3 times the price. The only reason to get a Quadro is if you use old stereoscopic shutter glasses that need quad-buffered stereo. So what graphics card for VR with ISOLDE? No matter how fast your graphics it will be too slow for VR and ISOLDE (both on GPU) if your atomic model is big and you try to simulate a big chunk. So I would recommend say an Nvidia RTX 3080 for about $800 if that is affordable. More expensive cards won't get you much more performance. VR resolution has not been a major issue for use in molecular visualization. We have been using Vive Pro headsets that have adequate resolution for a few years now. A Valve Index headset is probably the best choice for molecular visualization right now. People also use Quest 2 with link cable. The big problem is it would take many developer years of effort to have decent user interfaces in VR. The furthest along on this for molecular visualization is Nanome -- you should check out their molecular VR. We continued to develop ChimeraX VR including multi-person VR. Tom

On Mar 22, 2021, at 9:18 PM, wrote:

Hello Tristan and the Chimera team,

I have been using ChimeraX in VR: fantastic!

However, ISOLDE was not working in VR, unfortunately.

Is there a fix/workaround currently available to get ISOLDE running in VR?

Is there ongoing work on making ISOLDE VR compatible?

Also: 1) are there any advantages of using a Quadro card over a consumer-line card for ChimeraX VR? and 2) is there a recommended minimum system spec for getting high-enough frame rates in VR with large models? We are planning to put together a new system soon for molecular visualization and modelling, hence the questions.

Now that there are VR headsets with high-enough resolution (such as the HP Reverb G2) that allow reading smaller text and finer details in VR, I am hoping that the molecular visualization and modelling software will start providing built-in easy-to-use support for these devices. I applaud ChimeraX team for leading in this space (no pun intended 😊).

Best,

Gökhan

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