Angel Herraez wrote:
> On top of that, the interest of VRML is questionable. The more I 
> read, the more opinions I find it is an obsolete format.
> 
It might become more important again because of the possibility to
integrate interactive 3D Figures directly into a PDF document.

The following publication describes the integration of a molecular
structure exported as VRML file from PyMOL into a PDF document:

"Grasping molecular structures through publication-integrated 3D models."
Kumar P, Ziegler A, Ziegler J, Uchanska-Ziegler B, Ziegler A
Trends Biochem Sci. 2008 ;33:408-12.
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tibs.2008.06.004)

Starting with version 7 the Adobe Acrobat Reader includes a basic
interactive 3D viewer. It was mainly designed for technical 3D objects,
but it can also be very useful for molecular structures.

The 3D object is actually integrated in the "Universal 3D format" (U3D).
So it would be optimal if Jmol could export U3D directly. But since
there is already a rudimentary VRML exporter it might be sufficient to
export VRML instead.

There is a special 3D-Program available from Adobe that is able to
import VRML and generate interactive PDF figures. (In version 9 it is
only available within the full "Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended" package.)

I tried this successfully with a demo version. Although the whole
procedure is still rather complicated it seems to be a very promising
way to present 3D information directly within a publication. Since the
PDF format is now the standard for distributing publications this might
become very popular in the future. (But probably only if the generation
would become more easy.)

Regards,
Rolf

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