Quicktime

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-0at0-helium.camsci.com
 +1 617 491 6862