Key Technical Breakthroughs for Oculus Quest

Molecular Surfaces on the Oculus Quest in Nanome

Molecular Surfaces

Sadly because Quest doesn’t have a dedicated GPU, we had to depart from the strikingly beautiful GPU accelerated molecular surfaces we know and love on our desktop version. However, we have developed an analytical method to compute a more detailed molecular surface. Our surface algorithm for the Quest is a beta feature and will likely improve in the near future.

Integration with Nanome’s python-based API for plugins (AKA The Plug In System) for Molecular Energy Minimization and More

The energy minimization algorithm we leverage for desktop VR isn’t available on the Quest due to computational limitations. On top of that, we know that beyond basic energy minimizations, users want to have Nanome interface with other advanced computational solutions. These could include docking, molecular dynamics, cheminformatics, and other calculations. These computations traditionally can be computed on a large computing cluster or cloud services, separate from the computing device for VR.

Earlier this year, we rolled out the plugin system to our enterprise and select users to accomplish just this. We’re happy to announce that energy minimization is fully compatible through the plugin system with the Oculus Quest.

Through the plugin system, users can also access desktop files on their computers. This way, users can load custom structures as well as images and PDFs. Though the plugin system is currently unavailable to academic and app store users, we plan to open the plugin system availability to those users in mid-2020.

Quest vs Desktop VR

Although the Oculus Quest offers much more portability and affordability than desktop-based VR systems, there are some performance trade-offs. Currently, the main difference from the Quest version is the limitation of the total atom count in the scene. Quest users have been reliably able to load structures that contain about 2000 atoms. When the frame rate starts to slow down after loading in more than 2000 atoms, there will be a warning sign that will fade the workspace out. By contrast, Nanome’s desktop version can reliably load structures with 40k+ atoms with a GTX 1060. Users with more powerful GPUs have higher atom count limitations.

A personal note

Pwnage Tool for iPhone OS 3.0, circa June 2009

I learned how to code at the height of the iPhone jailbreaking movement in 2009. Cydia and the iPhone Dev Team is one of the biggest reasons I’m here today, building Nanome. Admittedly, the technicalities and circumstances are drastically different between the Quest and the iPhone. That said, after almost exactly a decade later, I can’t help but feel the ‘unoffical app store’ similarities between the early days of the jailbreaking community and the community that’s currently sprouting from SideQuest. Although I never got around to it, it was my dream to someday publish an app on Cydia, and I think distributing an app on SideQuest in 2019 is the closest thing.

Potential therapeutic solutions are being designed in Nanome, and we hope to impact thousands of lives across the planet. With the Quest, we hope to get Nanome into more people’s hands. I’m super excited to be apart of this journey with the VR/XR community, and I can’t wait for you all to try Nanome for Oculus Quest.