Chameleon: Dynamic Color Mapping for Multi-Scale Structural Biology Models

Visualization of structural biology data uses color to categorize or separate dense structures into particular semantic units. In multiscale models of viruses or bacteria, there are atoms on the finest level of detail, then amino-acids, secondary structures, macromolecules, up to the compartment level and, in all these levels, elements can be visually distinguished by color. However, currently only single scale coloring schemes are utilized that show information for one particular scale only. We present a novel technology which adaptively, based on the current scale level, adjusts the color scheme to depict or distinguish the currently best visible structural information. We treat the color as a visual resource that is distributed given a particular demand. The changes of the color scheme are seamlessly interpolated between the color scheme from the previous views into a given new one. With such dynamic multi-scale color mapping we ensure that the viewer is able to distinguish structural detail that is shown on any given scale. This technique has been tested by users with an expertise in structural biology and has been overall well received.