Scene Recording and Playback
Nanome v2.6 arrives with Scene Recording and Playback, introducing the ability to capture a full walkthrough of a molecular story, complete with text and audio annotations. These recordings provide a way to retain the "why" behind a structural decision. Playback controls are now also available within Nanome Web, allowing team members to playback recordings in a browser.
MARA Tools in XR
While still under development and therefore in beta, the new MARA tools in XR functionality brings the entire MARA tools library directly into the immersive experience. Previously, moving between visual inspection and analysis required an "export-run-import" loop. Now, tools can be browsed, searched, and filtered directly in-app.
Residue Mutations and Rotamers
The built-in Residue Editor consolidates residue mutation and rotamer editing into one XR tool. This tool manages connectivity for alternate locations with improved reliability, making it efficient to test residue substitutions in structural context. It serves as an immediate way to evaluate a structural hypothesis.
Collaboration and Team Alignment
Communication in 3D should be clear and persistent. Several updates enhance how teams work together:
- Shared Selection: Molecular objects selected by a collaborator now appear in that user's specific avatar color.
- Pointer Highlights: When attention is needed on a specific location, a pointer highlight can be broadcast to the room.
- Persistent Annotations: Custom text and sound annotations (including URLs) now persist through scene duplication and remain available during scene playback.
- Ligand Review: Ligand-table presets, numeric rating filters, and manual ligand designations provide a more consistent review workflow.
Under the Hood: Performance and Networking
Responsiveness remains a priority for large-scale workspaces. Nanome v2.6 replaces the previous real-time networking layer with an in-house WebSocket stack. This change improves session management, participant tracking, and voice relay. Live indicators now display ping and packet loss, offering immediate feedback on network conditions.
Furthermore, molecular surface and electrostatic potential (ESP) calculations now run in background processes, preventing session stalls. Coupled with level-of-detail rendering and dynamic-resolution spatial grids, the workspace remains fluid even when handling complex trajectories or large molecular systems.
Expanding the Web Workflow
Nanome Web continues to grow in capability with the addition of:
- Scene playback controls.
- Image export (web-only feature).
- The Sequence Menu and PDBQT loading.
- A Loading Report for structure-import warnings.
- Organization role management and file-move workflows.
Additional Scientific Updates
Interaction Analysis: Display of potential halogen-pi contacts, a ligand-to-protein filter, and visibility controls for interaction labels.
- Protein Alignment: Integration of TM-align for protein-protein alignment.
- Tooling: Export structures as SMILES and create distance filters directly.
- XR Keyboard: Added support for dictation and clipboard functions.
- Stability: Over 60 fixes address freezes, interface behavior, and workspace management, while the maximum scene limit has been increased to 50.
Nanome v2.6 is now available. Visit the setup page for the full release information, or access the browser-based Nanome Web.