AR-some Chemistry Models:Interactable 3D Molecules through Augmented Reality

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) presents many opportunities to design systems that can aid students in learning complex chemistry concepts. Chemistry is a 3D concept that student soften have trouble visualizing using 2D media. AR-some Chemistry Models is an AR application to visualize complex chemical molecules. Our app can generate 3D interactive molecules from chemical names, hand-drawn and printed line-angle structures of complex molecules. Allowing for handwritten input gives a student instant feedback on their self-generated understanding of a molecule and can improve knowledge retention. Students have the opportunity to visualize molecules from lecture notes, or even homework problems. Our application allows the student to interact with this molecule using simple touch screen commands to zoom in, zoom out, rotate and move the molecule in AR to understand the spatial relationship among the components. Our application also highlights and displays relevant textual information about a molecule’s functional groups when they are tapped to further improve student learning. We present an affordable and accessible study tool to help students with their learning of chemistry molecules.