The development of collaboratories is an area of Internet-based research that is beginning to receive significant attention. In its broadest definition a collaboratory is taken to mean a computing infrastructure that allows humans to collaborate remotely via computers attached to the network. Such collaboration can be synchronous or asynchronous. E-mail is an example of asynchronous collaboration; chat rooms, shared whiteboards, and MICE examples of synchronous collaborations. Synchronous communication implies that a number of users are collaborating at the same time. Synchronous communication requires attention to such features as maintaining a shared view of some application, maintaining who has control of that view, defining a collaboration as public (anyone can join) or private. Both synchronous and asynchronous collaborations require attention to issues like the user interface and security. The development of general-purpose environments for collaboration is under way. Examples are TANGO from the group at the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center and Habanero from the National Center for Supercomputing Activities (NCSA). MICE is NOT a general-purpose collaborative environment, but is specific to the shared visualization of biological macromolecules. However, the use of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and the Virtual Reality Behavior System (VRBS) protocol developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, which are the foundation of MICE are general and being applied to a variety of projects that fall under Interactive Collaborative Environments (ICE). Current Features of MICE * Shared Viewer: Each remote user shares the same view of the macromolecule with any user being able to take control. Synchronization of control is currently verbal. The macromolecule is represented as a VRML world produced by a PDB to VRML converter. The world is displayed in a modified version of the WebView VRML browser developed at SDSC. Camera following displayed in multiple remote instances of the browser in real time over standard Internet connections. * Behaviors: A behavior is some action triggered from the VRML world. This could be to update the view or to invoke an external application. Currently behaviors have been written to change the color coding of the molecule to display different properties e.g., N to C terminal trace, hydrophobicity, and subdomains and to invoke MEME a sequence motif finding program. Future Features of MICE A grant is currently pending to extend the capabilities of MICE to include: * A variety of filters producing VRML from existing graphics formats. * A console which better controls synchronization, security of the collaboration and general usability. Discussing are under way as part of a collaboration with the TANGO project. * A Molecular Scene Description Language (MSDL) which retains biological details as well as details of the scene in a format suitable for database query. * A molecular gallery of molecular scenes that can be used in education and research.
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