I've been rather busy (as well as ill) of late and hence the blogging hiatus. I have, however, made slight progress with the markers on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome. The accompanying low-res video (requires Java) shows how the marker can be modified, info displayed (including a previously saved comment), a surrogate prim rezzed for analysis elsewhere, the duration of the marker set, a vertical map of the current segment shown and hidden, the interactome from the STRING database displayed, the map of a particular interactor brought up and touch-interrogated, and, finally, the use of the sit teleport hack to relocate to the relevant segment and then, by reverse, return.
I hadn't intended to make the vertical maps touch-sensitive but it seemed sensible on reflection, not least because I want to display other maps there too. I don't plan to do much more with the markers at present. The next step will be the analysis workstation.
I'm still not sure that this is of much use except as a prototype. However, its like doesn't exist elsewhere so far as I know. That's the idea of prototypes and one of the benefits of SL.
If there is anything so grandiose as an overall vision, it is that the genome represents one of three levels; I call it the Bioscape as there will be other elements there such as protein structures. The level above that is the Cellscape (largely empty apart from the remnants of the cell wall class I ran in the previous semester) and above that again is the Cityscape which represents the social context of the disease process. I'm thinking the TED Prize acceptance speech by the photographer James Nachtwey might be shown there though the visuals are necessarily harrowing.
Alternatively, I might conflate all three levels given the time available.
