Tim Davison ᯅ
@timd_ca
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Building @CellWalkApp –immersive biology for iOS and Apple Vision Pro. PhD. Graphics programmer.
Canada
Joined September 2008
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Zooming around a bacteria cell. It's so cool
I just got the cell imported (including lipids) and rendering correctly with the new rendering engine (it's called Angstrom). 3x performance boost! So much detail (too much?!)
#screenshotsunday
#gamedev
#scicomm
#xcode
#swiftlang
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Zooming around a 300 million atom bacteria cell on my iPad in a beautiful cafe (my favorite ever actually).
I was working on an update for the slice UI today. The cafe is Terarosa on Jeju island S Korea (southern branch). Good coffee, but an even better atmosphere! Looking
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WIP: This is magic! I'm walking around a bacteria cell in
#AppleVisionPro
!!!
It's an atomistic cell model (you can see atoms when I get close to something).
I just got this prototype working in
@CellWalkApp
's renderer.
#science
#biology
#scicomm
#education
#gamedev
#apple
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We’re delighted to announce CellWalk for Apple Vision Pro. Tour the molecular machines inside a cell in this interactive and incredible learning experience.
(sound on)
#visionpro
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The new renderer is working (still WIP)! Flying around a whole Mycoplasma bacteria cell down to individual atoms. The cell model and data are from
@MartinaMaritan
,
@grinche
,
@dsgoodsell
et al (links below).
#screenshotsaturday
#scicomm
#gamedev
#switlang
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Just plugged an iPad Pro into a 49" monitor to try/test
@CellWalkApp
, haha. This is so cool. This little rendering engine has come so far... 300 million atoms on a 49" monitor using a mobile GPU is crazy.
#gamedev
#scicomm
#ios
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Check it out! I'm working on a point rasterization technique to outperform Apple's GPU hardware point rasterizer for iPhones and iPads.
~2-3 performance boost in some cases
Far from complete, but it's starting to work.
#scicomm
#iosdev
#metalapi
#computergraphics
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Check out our latest renderer, it's crazy fast! This 250-million atom bacteria cell model runs at 60 fps on my iPhone and iPad 😲 (2019 iPhone 11 Pro, 2020 iPad Pro). I'm working on some really fun UI for next time
#scicomm
#gamedev
#xcode
#swiftlang
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Yes! I've been optimizing, and now my iPhone can render a whole Mycoplasma cell in real-time. There are 255 million atoms, and we can zoom into any one of them. This is all powered by our new rendering technology. WIP.
#scicomm
#gamedev
#swiftlang
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Nature is incredible. The relative scale of various macromolecular structures: from hemoglobin to gas vesicles for controlling buoyancy in bacteria (see
@Stefan_T_Huber
et al.'s recent work). Realtime! Our software is in early-stage development.
#scicomm
#gamedev
#swiftlang
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Check it out! I finally imported everything correctly, DNA, RNA and lipids!
Stay tuned, we're building an interactive tour of this incredible models for iPhones and iPads. Biology class is going to be amazing.
#screenshotsaturday
#gamedev
#xcode
#swiftlang
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Suddenly, a wild ribosome appears! This is my weekend project adding AR support to our custom renderer. There is much more still to do. What should I do with it?
#ScreenshotSunday
#gamedev
#scicomm
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Yay! A billion atom scene🤯 On a whim I tried 7CG0 (bacterial flagellar motor), it's more friendly on the renderer than the ribosome. This is custom molecular visualization software written in Metal.
#screenshotsaturday
#scicomm
#iosdev
#gamedev
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Check it out! Touring an interactive 300-million atom cell on my iPad. This is going to be amazing for biology students
I just got this port of
@CellWalkApp
from Apple Vision Pro working on iPad tonight (not on the iOS app store yet)
#scicomm
#gamedev
#education
#edtech
#apple
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A bacteria cell on my desk.
#AppleVisionPro
This is a prototype feature in
@CellWalkApp
. Is it a gimmick or cool? It has major limitations, namely it is laggy and it is impossible to fix that perfectly in visionOS 1. I probably cannot ship this.
#scicomm
#education
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Our app
@CellWalkApp
is featured on the iOS
@AppStore
!! Ahhh, so exciting!
#education
#science
#biology
#iosdev
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WIP: today I finally got Metal passthrough building and rendering on device with foveation on visionOS 2 beta.
I obviously have a lot of work to do... but this a pretty big step. Once I sort out the bugs and artefacts, this is going to be insanely cool.
#gamedev
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Getting ready to submit to the App Store. You guys are going to love it. Here's a little screenshot from our content creation tool on macOS.
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WIP: zooming around an HIV virion in
@CellWalkApp
. Imagine this in biology class, it's so cool! 😆
I just got it working and it's not in the app yet (this is the CellWalk dev editor).
The orange capsid contains the genetic information (white).
Thanks
@grinche
for the model.
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WIP: Working on ribosome translation for
@dsgoodsell
's
#cellspace
workshop. Here we draw an mRNA and grab a small subunit with initiation factors to initiate translation at the 5' end. The subunit then scans for a start codon. How's the style?
#gamedev
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This is our entry for the
#CellSpace
workshop run by
@dsgoodsell
It's a realtime and interactive app about translation in our cells. We'll be extending it show how SARS-Cov2 uses this mechanism against us. It's a WIP, be gentle :)
@SigmaXiSociety
@ScienceTalkOrg
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WIP: Getting
@CellWalkApp
ready for iPhone. I just completed performance optimizations (~30% improvement). This week I'm updating and working on the UI.
#screenshotsunday
#iosdev
#gamedev
#scicomm
#screenshotsaturday
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This is the UI for
@CellWalkApp
's guided tour of a mycoplasma bacteria cell on iPhone! I've been working on the iPhone version since our February Apple Vision Pro launch, and I think it's ready. Realtime, ~300,000,000 atoms on a mobile GPU. Coming soon
#scicomm
#gamedev
#ios
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I got an entire cell rendering in my engine today! 60 fps 😉 This is Mycoplasma genitalium, the lipid membrane is hidden so we can see inside. I've been working hard with
@grinche
on the importer. Lots of bugs to sort out, but I'm excited.
#scicomm
#gamedev
#swiftlang
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Playing with hard cutting planes on the Mycoplasma bacteria cell. Also a much updated rendering style! WIP
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Working on another scene for the App. Getting excited!
It's an education app taking curious learners on a tour through a Mycoplasma bacteria cell!
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The M2 iPad Pro is a beast, it's rendering this bacteria cell in 10.17ms with max detail settings. I can't wait to see what the next iPad Pro can do.
What to do with all this compute?
#ipadpro
#ipadpro2024
#wwdc24
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What an amazing launch week for
@CellWalkApp
- 24 reviews (4.8 stars)
- It's one of the best reviewed educational apps for Apple Vision Pro
Thanks to my collaborators: HK,
@dsgoodsell
, and
@grinche
.
I can't wait to share more incredible biology!
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Static screenshot.
The computational Mycoplasma model that I am rendering was created by Maritan et al.
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New iPhone 16 is going to be so awesome for
@CellWalkApp
Tons of new performance for CW to play with!!
#iPhone16
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Spooky biology...
I'm working on CW's reverse depth buffer. This is for visionOS metal pass through, it also adds increased precision near the camera (less wasted bits!) that will help with some minor depth fighting issues.
#gamedev
#screenshots
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It's been a while since I played with the simulation side of things and it still works!
- fully GPU accelerated
- "Simulation" used loosely, it's better to call it animation
#swiftlang
#indiedev
#gamedev
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Check out this RNA!! I rewrote my .cif parser in Swift and it can finally and correctly load the RNA from these amazing CellPack files (
@grinche
). A really simple custom solution was the trick vs using an advanced .cif parsing library.
#scicomm
#gamedev
#swiftlang
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An immersive three-dimensional portal embeds the cell world within your space.
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Thick noodle DNA and RNA. The thick noodles are a total accident, the right version is the intended effect. However, I sort of like it.
I'm rewriting the DNA, RNA and lipids to reduce file sizes (from 1.6GB to hopefully ~300MB).
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Towards importing a whole cell, starting with a small test scene. Thanks
@grinche
, CellPack is amazing.
#screenshotsaturday
#scicomm
#gamedev
#swiftlang
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Zoomed in view of the Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria cell (membrane hidden). Data and model by
@MartinaMaritan
,
@grinche
,
@dsgoodsell
et al. (links below). Rendering by me (just a fan of their work). Their journal: and website:
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So I finally got around to implementing temporal anti-aliasing! Sort of 🥴 Wait till the end 😭
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Getting
@CellWalkApp
's iPad and iPhone release ready as I travel around Korea (first image is App Store submission!!)
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New screenshot from the renderer. Fixed handedness. This is a Mycoplasma bacteria cell. The cell model and data were created by Maritan et al. (see link). I'm just rendering it.
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This is so amazing. I've been waiting a long time for your next video.
This would be so crazy on Apple Vision Pro
Here's a render of a full eukaryotic replisome carrying out DNA replication. This was built using real .pdb data from
@buildmodels
I used this to make my latest video: ()
But now I want to do a quick works cited 🧵 (1/ ?)
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Preorders for Apple Vision Pro begin today in Canada!! I'm so excited for all the new users around the world who are experiencing the Apple Vision Pro for the first time. (and try
@CellWalkApp
)
#VisionPro
#AppleVisionPro
We’re delighted to announce CellWalk for Apple Vision Pro. Tour the molecular machines inside a cell in this interactive and incredible learning experience.
(sound on)
#visionpro
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Excited and honoured that our app was mentioned in the press release. One of the coolest things in my life so far!
When Apple Vision Pro launches tomorrow, users will be able to explore more than 1 million apps, including 600 apps made specifically for Vision Pro! The creativity of developers is amazing, and this is just the beginning. Endless possibilities await!
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Maritan et al's 2022 paper: project website:
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@bgolus
We're doing >billion atom biological cell visualizations at 4k, 60 fps. Works on iPads too, but the mac version achieves much higher visual quality. Renderer is currently designed around the m1/2 SoC features. Link to a "small" 250m atom cell model:
Playing with hard cutting planes on the Mycoplasma bacteria cell. Also a much updated rendering style! WIP
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The whole-cell model was created by Maritan et al.
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Metal got a bunch of new features in 3.2, including logging from shaders. I'm debugging an iOS 17 device atm though and I can't put iOS 18 on it (airplane wifi).
Metal also got new memory coherency fences, which will open up a lot of doors for new algorithms. There's one
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This software has so much educational potential. This software is a work in progress. I need to double-check that all the PDB structures have been imported correctly. I'm excited.
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@nice_byte
I know, right?! UE (and Brian Karis) solved computer graphics 🥹 (half-joking). There are still cool things to do though, my project is a custom molecular visualization engine on iOS.
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Screenshot, with lots of detail (not quite atomistic when zoomed out this far)
32-core M1 GPU, 2400x2400 resolution. 42m points dispatched in about 8.6ms. Which is closer to what we'd expect from AMD/Nvidia. Hoping to get that to 5-6ms and eliminate limitations.
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Someday I'll find time to finish this prototype and add it to
@CellWalkApp
This is our entry for the
#CellSpace
workshop run by
@dsgoodsell
It's a realtime and interactive app about translation in our cells. We'll be extending it show how SARS-Cov2 uses this mechanism against us. It's a WIP, be gentle :)
@SigmaXiSociety
@ScienceTalkOrg
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I was interviewed for this Financial Times article last week about Apple Vision Pro. Pretty coool
Takeaway for me: new app releases have naturally slowed, but developers on the platform are enthusiastic about its future.
Ars Technica syndication:
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Wow!
@CellWalkApp
is on the "From the editors" card on the Apple Vision Pro App Store!
"CellWalk is the biology lesson we never knew we wanted." IMO immersive visualization will make biology more accessible, this is great!
#education
#visionpro
#gamedev
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Tour the molecular design of life in an educational experience written by biologist Dr David Goodsell
@dsgoodsell
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@jkronand
@mayfer
I can share a link to Maritan et al.'s (
@MartinaMaritan
and
@grinche
) cell model github and website. Their data is open source and awesome. I'll put out a website for this app with more details as we launch.
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@ChaseMc67
great discussion below, at about 30s you can see a pyruvate dehydrogenase complex which plays a role in energy metabolism in this cell. Great article on it here:
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This was my number one wish for visionOS 2. The top request from
@CellWalkApp
users was to free the cell from it's portal, and now I can. So excited. Thank you engineers at Apple!
WWDC24: Render Metal with passthrough in visionOS | Apple via
@YouTube
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I landed in Seoul last night. I'm looking forward to relaxing in coffee shops and working on CellWalk. This is my favorite city.
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The whole cell model of a Mycoplasma bacterium was created by
@MartinaMaritan
,
@grinche
,
@dsgoodsell
et al.
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This is a procedurally generated red blood cell I created inside Unreal Engine back in 2016. It uses example-based discrete element texture synthesis to do its magic. I came across it in a folder of old screen captures.
#unrealengine
#gamedev
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Over the weekend I wrote a basic realtime atomistic renderer. This is the 60S component of the human ribosome (6Y0G).
#gamedev
#SciArt
#programming
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I had a little help debugging today. Look closely, she's painting proteins with her paws.
#gamedev
#ProgrammingLife
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No release date planned yet, there is another huge component that we haven't even started on.
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I've been talking with Takahito about Apple Vision Pro, education, and CellWalk. Check out this awesome article he's written. He's neatly summarized the challenges facing AVP in the classroom.
They have several AVP articles and a cool "zenn mediatation" app for AVP
I’ve done a deep dive into CellWalk, the
#VisionPro
app for cell exploration! This is an app worth noting for its multi-device support on iPhone and iPad.Thanks for the interview,
@timd_ca
!
#visionOS
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My goal is to hit 60 fps on a 10th gen iPad. Not quite there yet. I will significantly scale back the detail for iPhones and iPads (it won't be as detailed as the above screenshot) but it will look amazing. Can't wait to try this on the Apple VR headset!!
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Fixing rendering bugs on a long flight. I'm enjoying Alaskan glaciers between builds
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