Hello,
Me and some of my friends are planning to code a molecular visualization tool. Performance and interactiveness were some issues on my mind that gets me going between c++ and java. I was examining some suggested libraries for java. I wonder if lwjgl can give me what I need? What it mainly needs to do is to read coordinates from a given file and export them to the screen as atoms and bonds. Atoms are ofcourse spheres of say 40-50 triangles. And there may as many as 5.000 or rarely more. The performance issue is ofcourse the rotation of the view camera when there are so many spheres and bond. Second issue is I should be able to implement a user interface menu from which the user can have full control over the molecule as deleting atoms, adding atoms etc. From the examples I see in the web site, this library seems like a good candidate (although the name does not directly show it :p). But I would also like to consult the experience users of opengl library contained in this api. Thanks..
what sort of computer you planning to run it on?
Your app would be a very easy one to make. And also for performance, when you have zoomed out you can also just make lower triangle counts on the spheres.
Also because the human eye wouldnt be able to make sense of 5000 sphere arranged in double helix with only four colors. When you are fully zoomed out, you can just make a dodgy preset double helix shape to indicate there is more data, but when the user zooms, read from the file. I honestly think for ease of creation and protability of your app, lwjgl is a good option as it wont take long to make. You could also make webdemos for people to run.
If you want a really visually stimulating version with high quality graphics, try looking into JavaMonkeyEngine. its made using lwjgl and might cut out alot of basics (Also worth looking at for performance examples). If your interested in learning the basics of openGL, then yeah lwjgl is the way to go.
as for making it in c++ i dont think its worth it. not like the application would require a beast of a computer to run. and its harder to show off ;)