[Pipet Devel] AMMP & 3D veiwers (Greg & SooHaeng)

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Greg and SooHaeng,

If you have been following some of our recent discussions, you know that we will
not be making stand-alone programs.  Our molecule viewer will be like a plug-in
to the Loci Browser.

What we need then is a plug-in engine for drawing molecules in OpenGL.  I know
that SooHaeng has DND, which will draw some simple molecule representations. 
Greg has experience with OpenGL.  What we are missing are some more elaborate
representations.

I found a GPL program that does some very nice representations, but it has no
real GUI.  It's called, "Another Molecular Mechanics Program":

    http://asterix.jci.tju.edu/ammp.html

Can we make this a plug-in to the Loci Browser?  I would like help with this,
Greg and SooHaeng.

SooHaeng, parts of AMMP might be useful for DND too.

Greg, I need your help with an OpenGL trick:

    Can a 3D object be represented as a line drawing?  I don't mean wireframe.
    I mean take a raytraced object and draw a black-and-white cartoon, like
    black ink on white paper.  So, hard edges and "horizons" are drawn as lines.

I wrote to the author of AMMP to see if he would like to help too.  It is
actually an old program, around since 1993 or earlier.


Cheers,
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                  mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu
Boston College Chemistry      http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/
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