Towards interactive 3D graphics in chemistry publications

Abstract

In this paper, we describe how it is possible to extend the visualization and publishing capabilities of the ubiquitous Adobe portable document format (PDF) from the static 2-dimensional (2D) pictures to interactive 3-dimensional (3D) models, 3D-PDF. Embedding 3D scenes of molecules and molecular properties into the electronic Computational Chemistry publications could be very important for visualization of complex molecular properties. No additional 3D-rendering software is required, because the 3D information has been already integrated within the PDF document, which can be displayed by any computer with up-to-date Adobe Acrobat software installed. We briefly describe a computer program, Jamberoo, which can be used for creating 3D-PDF documents and demonstrate several simple examples of integrated 3D models within the PDF. Finally, we show some possibilities of Acrobat JavaScript programming for creating dynamic 3D-PDF content with the elements of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Show more