3D Software for Publishing

SignOnSanDiego.com: A small La Jolla company thinks it has a technology that could represent the future of scientific publishing.
The company, MolSoft, recently launched a platform it calls ActiveICM that enables authors to include three-dimensional, interactive graphics with the text of their articles. That means readers can click at the appropriate point in an article, call up an exhibit and view it from any angle.
The interface is straightforward, with an article’s text on one side of the screen and whatever exhibit the reader has chosen to look at on the other. Authors can include Internet-like links in the text as frequently as they want to direct readers to the exhibits.
“It’s not just animation,” Abagyan said. “It’s a fully interactive environment, which is extremely powerful, where you can look for things and in theory you can build it into any view (of the exhibit).”
Abagyan said a big advantage of the platform is that it works both online and off. So a reader can look at an article on the Web, where academic journals get much of their readership these days, or download it to read on a laptop whenever it’s convenient.
3-D software could give publishing a new angle [SignOnSanDiego.com]