Augmented Reality in Chemistry
The use of augmented and virtual reality in chemistry is slowly starting to gain traction. The initial use of virtual reality in drug discovery is well documented but usually confined to highly specialised hardware which has limited it's exposure to a wider audience. However as described by Jonas Boström at the recent Chemistry on Mobile Devices Meeting Virtual reality smartphone apps making chemistry look and feel cool. This project aims to enhance the learning experience for school chemistry lessons by providing virtual reality viewing of molecules using inexpensive Google Cardboard viewers available online.
Virtual reality smartphone apps are making chemistry look and feel cool. This project aims to enhance the learning experience for school chemistry lessons by providing virtual reality viewing of molecules using inexpensive Google Cardboard viewers.
The power of the latest generation of smart phones has enabled scientists to also explore augmented reality. Augmented reality is now being used in a number of situations. To enhance publications as demonstrated by Alistair Crow, if you want to know how to do this instructions are available here. Many people have probably used the superb ChemTube3D website created by Nick Greeves at the University of Liverpool which is an invaluable education resource, this is also accessible via a Smartphone app.
ChemTube3D contains interactive 3D animations and structures, with supporting information for some of the most important topics covered during an undergraduate chemistry degree
More recently some of the pages have been enhanced to provide access to virtual reality models, if you would like to develop similar pages there is an AppleScript droplet to batch convert Jmol files into files suitable for AR.
More recently Mark Costner has released MoleculAR: an augmented reality (AR) app to view molecules in 3D.