Ambient occlusion and edge cueing to enhance real time molecular visualization

Tarini M, Cignoni P, Montani C

Three Dimensional Graphics and Realism  Interactive protein visualization 

The paper presents a set of combined techniques to enhance the real-time visualization of simple or complex molecules (up to order of 10^6 atoms) space fill mode. The proposed approach includes an innovative technique for efficient computation and storage of ambient occlusion terms, a small set of GPU accelerated procedural impostors for space-fill and ball-and-stick rendering, and novel edge-cueing techniques. As a result, the user's understanding of the three-dimensional structure under inspection is strongly increased (even for still images), while the rendering still occurs in real time.

Source: IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS, vol. 12 (issue 5), pp. 1237-1244