SignOnSanDiego.com: A small La Jolla company thinks it has a technology that could represent the future of scientific publishing.
The company, MolSoft, recently launched a platform it calls ActiveICM
that enables authors to include three-dimensional, interactive graphics
with the text of their articles. That means readers can click at the
appropriate point in an article, call up an exhibit and view it from any
angle.
The interface is straightforward, with an article’s text on one side of
the screen and whatever exhibit the reader has chosen to look at on the
other. Authors can include Internet-like links in the text as frequently
as they want to direct readers to the exhibits.
"It’s not just animation,” Abagyan said. "It’s a fully interactive
environment, which is extremely powerful, where you can look for things
and in theory you can build it into any view (of the exhibit).”
Abagyan said a big advantage of the platform is that it works both
online and off. So a reader can look at an article on the Web, where
academic journals get much of their readership these days, or download
it to read on a laptop whenever it’s convenient.
