Online tools to easily build augmented reality models of biomolecules that run right on the web

Abstract

Several groups developed in the last years augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) programs and apps to visualize 3D molecules, most rather static, limited in content, and requiring software installs, some even requiring specialized hardware. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our team launched moleculARweb (https://molecularweb.epfl.ch), a website that offers interactive content for chemistry and structural biology education through web-based AR that works on consumer devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. The website quickly got thousands of student and teacher users, a substantial fraction of them accessing from their homes given the pandemic. Teachers have been increasingly requesting more biological macromolecules to be available in AR, a demand that we cannot satisfy individually. Therefore, to allow them to build their own material, and also to help us expedite development of activities, we built a web interface where any user can build any online AR experience in few steps starting from a PDB structure or from virtual objects/scenes exported from VMD. We here briefly describe the tool, that is accessible at https://molecularweb.epfl.ch/pages/pdb2ar.html.