VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 20 2001 - 14:09:12 CST

Dear Steve,
  Yes, it is possible to equip a classroom with PC's for 3-D
molecular visualization. VMD runs on both Windows and Linux, both of which
are good candidates for such a PC lab environment. The hardware side of
things is also fairly easy to deal with. If you have PC's with AGP
graphics slots in them, you can equip them with good NVidia GeForce 2 or
GeForce 3 graphics accelerators for right around $100 per machine.
Similarly, you can buy the Eye3D premium wired PC stereo glasses for
$119 or so. If you really want to go the full distance, you can probably
buy used Spaceball six-degree-of-freedom input devices for somewhere around
$100 as well. ($460 new if I recall correctly..) This is exactly the sort
of setup we use locally on the desks of about 50% of our researchers.
So, if you can afford between $100 to $300 per seat to upgrade your
existing PCs, or as a budget to go with a set of newly purchased
machines, you can have a great lab setup.

You can get the NVidia cards from quite a few vendors, we've had good
luck with the Leadtek, VisionTek, and few other varieties of the NVidia
GeForce boards. If you would like to know who we order from, I could
get that information from our system administrator. I think even
the models that sell at Best Buy can be had for somewhere near $100.

We bought our Eye3D stereo glasses from these guys, we are using
the "Eye3D premium wired" model on researchers' desks, which runs
about $119:
  http://www.demensional.com/eye3d_premium.htm

If you're interested in picking up some used Spaceballs, we bought ours
from Cypress Technology, ours are the "HP A4360A" variety. They are a
really great way to manipulate the view in 3-D. We bought about 22 of them
for around $100 each if I recall correctly.

Let us know if you have more questions.

Thanks,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, Dec 20, 2001 at 02:39:17PM -0500, Stephen Koch wrote:
> I am interested in using protein visualization software like VMD in the
> undergraduate and graduate class room situation.
> I would like to equip our undergraduate computer center with inexpensive 3D
> visualization. Is this possible with commonly available
> PC windows Computer hardware and inexpensive 3D glasses.
> Thanks
> Steve Koch
> Stephen A. Koch 631-632-7944 (7931) Koch_at_sbchem.sunysb.edu Fax 631-632-7960
> Department of Chemistry, SUNY,Stony Brook, NY 11794-3400
> WWW: notes.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/chemistry.nsf/pages/SKoch 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349              
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078