Welcome to the MegaMol™-Project-Website

MegaMol™ is a visualization middleware used to visualize point-based molecular datasets. This software is developed within the Collaborative Research Center 716, subproject D.3 at the Visualization Research Center (VISUS) of the University of Stuttgart.

This project was initialized late 2006 by Sebastian Grottel working on the SFB project. Early 2011 Bertram Thomaß started working on this project as successor of Sebastian Grottel. From 2012 Guido Reina is coordinating the MegaMol™ project. He is now also in charge of development and support of MegaMol™.

MegaMol™ succeeds MolCloud, which has been developed at the University of Stuttgart in order to visualize point-based datasets. MegaMol™ is written in C++, and uses an OpenGL as Rendering-API and GLSL-Shader. It supports the operating systems Microsoft Windows (Vista, 7) and Linux (Suse), each in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. In large parts, MegaMol™ is based on VISlib (website currently only available in german), a C++-class library for scientific visualization, which has also been developed at the University of Stuttgart.

Obtaining MegaMol™

MegaMol™ is freely and publicly available as open source following the therms of the BSD License.

Precompiled binaries are available for several platforms: http://www.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/distribution/

The source code can be found in our svn repository:
https://svn.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/projects/megamol/core
https://svn.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/projects/megamol/frontends/console
and more ...

The current version is MegaMol™ 0.4.

MegaMol™ Documentation

MegaMol™ (0.4) building instructions
MegaMol™ (0.4) Installation guide and user manual (in german)
MegaMol™ (0.4) Demo files (in german)
The MegaMol™ Particle File Format Specification (Version 3.0)
Howto make Screenshots and Videos with MegaMol™ (0.4)
MegaMol™ (0.4) Guide to plug-in debugging with Visual Studio (in german)
MegaMol™ (0.4) Design information (in german only)
Source code documentation on MegaMol™ (0.4) Core: generated by doxygen
Source code documentation on MegaMol™ (0.4) Console: generated by doxygen
Information for MegaMol developer
Known design problems of MegaMol 0.4 (Info for developers) (in german)
MegaMol Powerpoint Presentation 21.10.2010 (english slides)

Citing MegaMol™

If you want to reference MegaMol™ you have several options listed on the site referencing MegaMol™. For a short link, please use one of these URLs which guarantee for future accessibility:

Special versions

There are several special versions of MegaMol™ for particular purposes:

  • SimTech This is a MegaMol™ version used in a SimTech project.
  • Girls' Day This version is a completely independent design, based on general MegaMol™ codes. (website in german only)

Plug-ins

MegaMol™ has contained a plug-in system since version 0.4. In this version, MegaMol™‘s core component assumes the general functions of the framework, as well as the basic rendering for molecular dynamic datasets with the help of GPU sphere glyphs. Plug-ins are used for further specialized visualization or illustration purposes beyond the main scope of MegaMol™.

Here is a list of some plug-ins:

  • Dislocations A plug-in allowing for a compact and distinct display of dislocation or stacking-fault structures in crystal lattices. It was created in a joint effort by the SFB 716 subprojects D.3 and B.2. Published: S. Grottel, C. Dietrich, J. Comba, T. Ertl, "Topological Extraction and Tracking of Defects in Crystal Structures", Workshop: TopoInVis 2009, Snowbird, Utah.
  • mvplots In this plug-in, parts of the research work of SFB 716 subproject D.5 are realized. It centers on the visualization of multi-variant data with the help of scatterplots and parallel coordinates.
  • Protein This plug-in adds functionality to MegaMol™ in terms of the visualization of proteins and other biomolecules. Its development is part of the research work of SFB 716 subproject D.4.
  • TriSoup This miniature plug-in only renders a simple list of triangles as geometry. It mainly works as reference implementation for other plug-ins.

Who, What, Where?

MegaMol™ is developed in the SFB 716 subproject D.3. Accordingly, the main project operator is also mainly responsible for MegaMol™’s development and architecture.

  1. This wiki contains all the basic information on MegaMol™. At least, that is the idea behind it. If you should find something missing, please contact the person in charge so that it will be added or so that you will be granted the rights to add it yourself.
  2. The mailing liste megamol@… (most of the time in german) is the means of communication for everyone involved with the MegaMol™ project. It should be used to distribute general information or data which could be interesting to all. The mailing list’s website is accessible via http://vis-web.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/mailman/listinfo/megamol
  3. This Trac contains a Ticket-System for bug reports or feature requests. If you think you found a new bug or would like for a new feature to be added, please record it here.
  4. The trouble-shooting guide (currently in german only) might also be helpful to you for it lists all the mistakes commonly made.
  5. If all of the above can still provide no help for you, then (and only then) you can contact one of the main developers with your problem (Guido Reina).

Older Versions

Information on older MegaMol™ versions can be found here: Old versions of MegaMol™ (in german only)

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