The combination of Blender and Molecular Nodes represents a revolution in the ability of structural biologists to create visually compelling images and animations of their protein structures and molecular dynamics simulations.
Crucial to any scientific field is clear and compelling communication of complex data. Traditional molecular graphics software has excelled in the analysis of scientific data. However, they often lack the rendering capabilities of dedicated 3D software packages when attempting to create more visually interesting images and animations. Traditional 3D modelling and animation software has excelled in visual fidelity but lacked compatibility with structural biology data such as the .pdb format and other more complex molecular dynamics trajectories. Some plugins have partially bridged this gap, with MolecularMaya providing an interface to structural biology data in the 3D animation program Maya and ePMV / CellPack providing a suite of tools for importing molecular data into a range of animation software such as Cinema4D, Autodesk 3DS Max & Blender. None, however, have been able to import molecular dynamics trajectories into the 3D software efficiently, and they lose their connection to the underlying atomic properties of the data, limiting the possibilities of styling and animation after import from PyMol and ChimeraX.
Molecular Nodes, a plugin for the free & open-source 3D modelling and animation software Blender, enables the opening of structural biology files from sources such as the wwPDB and adds support for importing 'raw' molecular dynamics trajectories through the Python library MDAnalysis. Molecular Nodes also enables the user-friendly creation of procedurally generated DNA, RNA & lipid membranes for creating complex and visually stunning molecular images and animations. These are all bundled and available inside the industry-standard 3D animation software Blender, enabling the quick creation of visually stunning and compelling images and animations.
Molecular Nodes and the accompanying Blender for Biochemists online tutorials have already been used by thousands of researchers worldwide to create compelling visualisations of molecular data, featured in the New York Times, Particle magazine and others.