Introducing Mol*: fast, interactive 3D visualisation in your browser at RCSB PDB and PDBe

Introducing Mol*: fast, interactive 3D visualisation in your browser at RCSB PDB and PDBe

Access Mol*, a new 3D molecular viewer developed in collaboration between RCSB PDB, PDBe, and CEITEC, from RCSB PDB and PDBe pages. This new viewer allows fast visualisation of molecular structures and their corresponding data, along with high quality rendering within the browser window.

 

The speed of Mol*, enabling visualisation of huge structures in the browser and even on mobile devices, is achieved thanks to the use of binary CIF files, available as static files or delivered from the ModelServer and VolumeServer. This compressed format, delivering only the data that is required, ensures incredibly fast loading of both model and map data from PDB and EMDB entries. In addition to its speed, Mol* has a powerful rendering engine, enabling high quality visualisation of molecular structures in various representations.

 

Molstar viewer at PDBe for PDB entry 5lnk

Molstar as displayed on the PDBe entry page for 5lnk (PDBe.org/5lnk/3d). The associated EMDB map (EMD-4093) is automatically loaded upon opening the viewer.

 

On the PDBe pages, Mol* has now replaced the LiteMol viewer in all instances, including on the PDBe search and entry pages (e.g. pdbe.org/5lnk/3d). Access Mol* from any 3D View tab for Structure Summary pages at RCSB.org.   Both the LiteMol and NGL viewers at PDBe and RCSB PDB, respectively, will no longer be actively developed.

 

Molstar viewer at RCSB for PDB entry 5j7v

View for Faustovirus (PDB 5j7v) at RCSB.org. Toggle between 3D viewers at the bottom of the display.

 

 

Mol* (molstar.org) itself is an open-source project that provides a technology stack for data delivery and analysis tools of macromolecules. The source code is available on Github (github.com/molstar). Individual components (including the Viewer) of Mol* can be readily used in 3rd party applications. Additionally, PDBe's implementation of Mol* is available as an easily embeddable web component - for more information, visit the PDBe github page.

 

If you have any queries about the Mol* viewer implementation then either press the orange ‘Contact us’ button at RCSB PDB pages, or the ‘Feedback’ button at PDBe.