Membrane Mapping: Combining Mesoscopic and Molecular Cell Visualization

Abstract

Three-dimensional cell visualization is an important topic in today's cytology-affiliated community. Cell illustrations and animations are used for scientific as well as for educational purposes. Unfortunately, there exist only few tools to support the cell modeling process on a molecular level. A major problem is the immense intracellular size variation between relatively large mesoscopic cell components and small molecular membrane patches. This makes both modeling and visualization of whole cells a challenging task. In this paper we propose Membrane Mapping as an interactive tool for combining the mesoscopic and molecular level. Based on instantly computed local parameterizations we map patches of molecular membrane structures onto user-selected regions of cell components. By designing an efficient and GPU-friendly mapping technique, our approach allows to visualize and map pre-computed molecular dynamics simulations of membrane patches to mesoscopic structures in real-time. This enables the visualization of whole cells on a mesoscopic level with an interactive magnifier tool for inspecting their molecular structure and dynamic behavior.