Can someone explain to me how the combination of HTML5 and WebGL is a
replacement for Java?
Is the idea there that HTML5 somehow (via on-the-fly compiling? via
pre-compiled equivalents of Java?) can reach the sort of speeds that people
need for molecular graphics? Or is this just a dream? I'm just not finding
anything out there that suggests it's any more than JavaScript with a 3D
canvas. It's true that it would be nice to have built-in 3D graphics, and I
can see how in some limited fashion this could be useful, but there's a lot
besides rendering that is done in the process of molecular visualization.
Construct an MO? Apply symmetry?
By the way, I have played some with the free Molecules app for the iPhone.
Someone recently mentioned that as a proof of concept that this can all be
done on a phone. However, I'm not so sure. Yes, you can do graphics. Nothing
particularly awesome about that. It's processing power for calculation that
one needs here. I wonder what the limitations of that really are. How large
a molecule has anyone gotten to work on that? Is it just eye-candy?
I tried 2x9r (58K atoms), and after it downloaded (2-3 minutes), half way
through rendering the app crashed. When I started it again, it was able to
finish rendering, but the user response is not usable. Any user interaction
takes about 10 seconds to process. This is even though the atoms are simply
icosahedra, and bonds are hexagonal cylinders.
Mind you, I like my iPhone. It's a great phone.
Bob
--
Robert M. Hanson
Professor of Chemistry
St. Olaf College
1520 St. Olaf Ave.
Northfield, MN 55057
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr
phone: 507-786-3107
If nature does not answer first what we want,
it is better to take what answer we get.
-- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900
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