19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Data Visualisation
DNA in Virtuo: Visualization
and Virtual Manipulation of 3D Genomic Structures
J. Hérisson (herisson@limsi.fr)
P.E. Gros (gros@limsi.fr)
N. Férey (ferey@limsi.fr)
O. Magneau (magneau@limsi.fr)
R. Gherbi (gherbi@limsi.fr)
LIMSI-CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, France
http://www.limsi.fr
In this paper, we address the potentialities offered by Virtual Reality and
scientific simulation for 3D modeling and immersive visualization of huge genomic
sequences. Advanced work on 3D data modeling and structuring is proposed. In
Bioinformatics, DNA sequences are often represented within
linear format. However, they also have a three-dimensional structure potentially
suitable for genomic analysis. The representation of such 3D structure allows
biologists to observe and analyze genomes in an interactive way at different
levels: from gene to chromosome. We developed a powerful software platform that
provides a new point of view for sequences analysis: ADN-Viewer. But, a classical
eukaryotic chromosome of 40 millions base pairs requires about 6 Gbytes of 3D
data. In order to manage these huge masses of data in real-time, we had to design
various scene management algorithms and immersive human-computer interaction
for user-friendly data exploration. A demonstration of ADN-Viewer software could
be performed during the conference. At present time, ADN-Viewer can load and
visualize multiple sequences of about several tens Mbp (depends of memory size).
The user has the possiblity to identify various DNA
zones, presenting either compact or relaxed properties. ADN-Viewer was also
interfaced with a genomic database containg all presently sequenced and annotated
living organisms. The databas gives us additional information about genes names,
genes locations and other genetic objects within a chromosome. In addition,
ADN-Viewer is also available within immersive virtual environment, providing
stereoscopic visualization on large screens and 3D user-friendly interface,
using powerful navigation, gesture, speech commands...). Such multimodal human-computer
interface offers intuitive usage and it is very suitable when processing and
managing huge amount of data, as it is the case of complete chromosomes.