VR for teaching biomolecular physics
Really exciting to see work by Dr. Simon Bennie featured on the cover of this month’s issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. The paper, which you can access here, outlines how Narupa, our open-source VR-enabled interactive simulation framework, was applied to develop a computational laboratory exercise enabling undergraduate students to better understand the dynamics and interactions that guide drug-protein binding.
OPEN SOURCE VR GLOVE WORKSHOP AT THE IRL
This week the IRL hosted etextile designers Rachel Freire and Becca Rose who have collaborated to develop an open source ‘Mudra’ VR gloves. The DIY glove design is compatible with the HTC Vive, breaking out the pins on the Vive Tracker and mounting it on the wrist of a DIY etextile glove design.
Our VR lab was temporarily repurposed as a makerspace to facilitate the creation of four brand new pairs of gloves and to repair and upgrade two existing pairs. The design was prototyped by Becca Rose, working from Rachel Freire’s open source designs and the ‘Mudra’ glove made in our workshop is an updated design developed specifically for the IRL team to use in Narupa.
Interactive molecular dynamics in virtual reality from quantum chemistry to drug binding: An open-source multi-person framework
An open-access paper describing our open-source iMD-VR framework Narupa has been published as in J Chem Phys , and it’s been selected as the “Editor’s Pick featured article”. It’s also scheduled to appear on the journal’s cover, featuring an image made by IRL PhD student Alexander Jamieson-Binnie.
Narupa builder prototype
The IRL have just released a prototype for a molecular builder, the latest addition to the open-source Narupa family Features are being actively developed right now… if you have ideas or features you’d like to see (or bugs to report) let us know via the GitLab issue repository
Narupa: open-source beta exectuble
We’ve just published an open access article (arxiv.1902.01827) describing Narupa, our open-source multi-person iMD-VR (interactive molecular dynamics in virtual reality) framework. To go along with the article, we’ve published a stable beta executable of Narupa, available at irl.itch.io/narupaxr.
The executable is effectively a build of the source at gitlab.com/intangiblerealities. If you want to set up your own multi-participant VR lab, instructions are available here.