SUMMARY: Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of cell membranes allow for a better understanding of complex processes such as changing membrane dynamics, lipid rafts and the incorporation/passing of macromolecules into/through membranes. To explore and understand cell membrane compositions, dynamics and processes, visual analytics can help to interpret MD simulation data. APL@Voro is a software for the interactive visualization and analysis of cell membrane simulations. Here, we present the new APL@Voro, which has been continuously developed since its initial release in 2013. We discuss newly implemented algorithms, methodologies and features, such as the interactive comparison of related simulations and methods to assign lipids to either the upper or lower leaflet. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The current open-source version of APL@Voro can be downloaded from http://aplvoro.com.

Abstract After a long period of scepticism, more and more publications describe basic research but also practical approaches to how abstract data can be presented in immersive environments for effective and efficient data understanding. Central aspects of this important research question in immersive analytics research are concerned with the use of 3D for visualization, the embedding in the immersive space, the combination with spatial data, suitable interaction paradigms and the evaluation of use cases. We provide a characterization that facilitates the comparison and categorization of published works and present a survey of publications that gives an overview of the state of the art, current trends, and gaps and challenges in current research.

The recent availability of affordable and lightweight tracking sensors allows researchers to collect large and complex movement datasets. These datasets require applications that are capable of handling them whilst providing an environment that enables the analyst(s) to focus on the task of analysing the movement in the context of the geographic environment it occurred in. We present a framework for collaborative analysis of geospatial-temporal movement data with a use-case in collective behavior analysis. It supports the concurrent usage of several program instances, allowing to have different perspectives on the same data in collocated or remote setups. The implementation can be deployed in a variety of immersive environments, e.g. on a tiled display wall or mobile VR devices.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells have been in the focus of research for more than a decade, in particular due to its use as alternative source for energy production. However, the molecular processes in these cells are still not completely known, and 3D visualisations may help to understand these complex interactions and processes. In previous work, we presented the stereoscopic 3D (S3D) visualisation of a complete Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cell created with the 3D modelling framework Blender. This animation contained already a scene showing an illustrative membrane model of the thylakoid membrane. During discussion with domain experts, shortcomings of the visualisation for several detailed analysis questions have been identified and it was decided to redefine it.