Sticky Notes: A Collaboration Tool for Distributed Protein Visualization and Annotation

We developed an annotation tool, “sticky notes,” for facilitating distributed collaboration for 3D modeling and visualization. Sticky notes are small 3D objects that coexist with and augment the host 3D objects. Sticky notes provide a convenient way for people to annotate (with both text and audio) a model. However, our note mechanisms go beyond simple passive annotation to also provide active interactivity. We introduce the action notes that perform operations on-demand, and the active notes that monitor the environment for specific events and automatically handle such events when they occur without the user intervention. Sticky notes also exhibit levels-of-detail behaviors that adapt their appearance for optimal viewing. As a demonstration of concept, we use sticky notes for an application in collaborative visualization of protein data from the Protein Data Bank. The application environment centers on a “virtual lab,” which comprises a number of “virtual workbenches.” Each workbench accommodates a group of geographically distributed users collaborating on a protein model. The users of a workbench can annotate the model with sticky notes and share these notes. Sticky notes thus allow sharing of ideas, enable joint attention, and facilitate group work. We discuss key design and implementation issues related to our tool and system.