From chemistry-request@ccl.net Thu Apr  2 13:01:36 1992
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 10:51:01 EST
From: sdr@mercury.camsci.COM (Stewart Rubenstein)
Subject: Quicktime
To: chemistry@ccl.net (chemistry)
Organization: Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.

Subject:   Quicktime                                   10:39        4/2/92
Quicktime might be overkill for this purpose, since even the best MPEG
compression algorithm will not do as well as one which can recreate the
images from a connection table with coordinates.  More importantly, reducing
the animation to a Quicktime movie eliminates the possibility of interactive
exploration, for example, viewing the movie from a different angle.

Quicktime is slick, and would allow the movies to be used in interesting
ways, but I don't think it's right as a distribution medium.

At the risk of making a commercial plug, I will note that our Chem3D Viewer
is freely distributable.  A Chem3D owner can create a single-frame model or
a movie containing any number of molecules and give it to a colleague with a
copy of Chem3D Viewer, and the colleague can view the structure(s) from any
angle.

Moving ever closer to that oh-so-fine-line, for those still interested in
Quicktime, I note that it would be a natural direction for future
enhancement of Chem3D to support the creation of Quicktime movies.

Stew Rubenstein
President
Cambridge Scientific Computing, inc.
sdr@helium.camsci.com
+1 617 491 6862