19^th International CODATA Conference
Category: Data Visualisation

DNA in Virtuo: Visualization and Virtual Manipulation of 3D Genomic Structures

J. Hérisson (herisson@limsi.fr)
P.E. Gros (gros@limsi.fr)
N. Férey (ferey@limsi.fr)
O. Magneau (magneau@limsi.fr)
R. Gherbi (gherbi@limsi.fr)
LIMSI-CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, France
http://www.limsi.fr

In this paper, we address the potentialities offered by Virtual Reality and scientific simulation for 3D modeling and immersive visualization of huge genomic sequences. Advanced work on 3D data modeling and structuring is proposed. In Bioinformatics, DNA sequences are often represented within linear format. However, they also have a three-dimensional structure potentially suitable for genomic analysis. The representation of such 3D structure allows biologists to observe and analyze genomes in an interactive way at different levels: from gene to chromosome. We developed a powerful software platform that provides a new point of view for sequences analysis: ADN-Viewer. But, a classical eukaryotic chromosome of 40 millions base pairs requires about 6 Gbytes of 3D data. In order to manage these huge masses of data in real-time, we had to design various scene management algorithms and immersive human-computer interaction for user-friendly data exploration. A demonstration of ADN-Viewer software could be performed during the conference. At present time, ADN-Viewer can load and visualize multiple sequences of about several tens Mbp (depends of memory size). The user has the possiblity to identify various DNA zones, presenting  either compact or relaxed properties. ADN-Viewer was also interfaced with a genomic database containg all presently sequenced and annotated living organisms. The databas gives us additional information about genes names, genes locations and other genetic objects within a chromosome. In addition, ADN-Viewer is also available within immersive virtual environment, providing stereoscopic visualization on large screens and 3D user-friendly interface, using powerful navigation, gesture, speech commands...). Such multimodal human-computer interface offers intuitive usage and it is very suitable when processing and managing huge amount of data, as it is the case of complete chromosomes.