Hi Dave,
We recently equipped a pool of 25 computers with Nvidia 3D shutter
glasses, they're used in structural biology courses for undergraduate
students of biochemistry . We teach mainly PyMOL, but (in an advanced
course) also model building in COOT. Of course, we let the students
decide whether they want to use hardware stereo or not. They all try.
After several courses now I realized no more than 30% of the students
keep using them in visualization and model building, while the majority
of students put the glasses aside... Some of the 30% said, it helps, but
could also do without. Haven't assessed this properly yet... ;-)
Christoph
David Roberts wrote:
Thanks for the comments, I do appreciate them. I guess we went off in
a direction I wasn't thinking of - related to your personal like or
dislike of stereo. What I am really looking for is an answer to a
simple question in that is stereo a nice thing from a pedagogy
standpoint for showing students complex biomolecules.
I am in a chemistry department - undergraduate only. We focus on
3-dimensional shape and the importance of shape of chemical
function/reactivity/etc... With small molecules (PF5, etc...), it's
easy to see how shape works by simply rotating the molecule. The
molecules are small enough, the concept of 3D can be visualized easily
in these systems. Furthermore, they can make a simple model using
your standard organic or inorganic model kit, no worries.
Now, bring in a huge protein, or a protein-protein complex. The issue
of 3Dness becomes fuzzier. It's not so easy to see which hydrogen
will get plucked off during a chemical reaction, even with careful
zooming and mouse manipulation. So my question still is, how many of
you feel stereo is important from a pedagogy standpoint (not looking
at maps, just structures that are huge and complex). Is it something
that we need to try to bring to the classroom, or is it just a cool
toy like the 3D TV that hopefully is going nowhere and will soon fade
out like the viewmaster of old. I know a large percentage of people
cannot see stereo (at least the way we present it), and so it isn't
for everybody. But, does it help, and if so, does it help when done
in a huge classroom or when put on an individual screen. Has anybody
tried to assess this (there's a horrible word for you).
That's what I was wondering about. Presenting the stereo is a
different issue (how is that done), but I think there are lots of
avenues for that depending on your particular situation.
Thanks again
Dave
