Bioinformatics, Vol 14, 807-814, Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press
S Pook, G Vaysseix and E Barillot
MOTIVATION: The problems caused by the difficulty in visualizing and
browsing biological databases have become crucial. Scientists can no longer
interact directly with the huge amount of available data. However, future
breakthroughs in biology depend on this interaction. We propose a new
metaphor for biological data visualization and browsing that allows
navigation in very large databases in an intuitive way. The concepts
underlying our approach are based on navigation and visualization with
zooming, semantic zooming and portals; and on data transformation via magic
lenses. We think that these new visualization and navigation techniques
should be applied globally to a federation of biological databases.
RESULTS: We have implemented a generic tool, called Zomit, that provides an
application programming interface for developing servers for such
navigation and visualization, and a generic architecture-independent client
(Javatrade mark applet) that queries such servers. As an illustration of
the capabilities of our approach, we have developed ZoomMap, a prototype
browser for the HuGeMap human genome map database. AVAILABILITY: Zomit and
ZoomMap are available at the URL http://www.infobiogen.fr/services/zomit.
ARTICLES
Zomit: biological data visualization and browsing
GIS Infobiogen, 7 rue Guy Moquet - BP 8, 94801 Villejuif cedex, France. stuart@infobiogen.fr
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