Seeing is understanding. Improvements in computer software and hardware are revolutionizing three-dimensional imaging in biology.

Apicture is worth a thousand words. For scientists in particular, it is often easier to draw a signal transduction pathway or a large organic molecule in order to understand it than it is to describe it using words or numbers. As human sensory equipment relies heavily on visual input, our brains find it much easier to process information from an image—the question is how to “represent data in a way that humans can analyse and understand it,” according to Forbes Dewey, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, MA, USA) and codirector of the International Consortium for Medical Imaging Technology. Of course, drawing a sketch or a rough illustration of a cell membrane, a ribosome or a nuclear pore is not a problem for an experienced illustrator. But the challenge increases with the amount of information available, the level of detail required and the need to represent reality exactly—drawing a ribosome in which every single atom is shown in its correct position for a particular state would overwhelm even the best graphics department. It is here that the computer—or, more specifically, rendering software—steps in to create such realistic images. Although architects, engineers, the movie industry and computer-game developers have used these programmes for more than two decades, biologists are only beginning to discover three-dimensional (3D) graphics software as a powerful tool to visualize molecular and cellular structures. And it does not stop there: new methods and graphics-supported modelling software that make use of the highly developed human visual system could greatly enhance the understanding of any research data. “Graphics is very important in helping to visualize [...] predictions,” said Dave Ritchie, a lecturer in the University of Aberdeen’s Department of Computing Science in the UK. Although biologists, like their colleagues in chemistry, have long used computers to draw complex molecules or proteins at the atomic level, the increased power of today’s computers, combined with improved software to render realistic 3D images, now enables completely new applications without the need for expensive graphics workstations. “All modern PC graphics capabilities are certainly sufficient for molecular biology visualizations,” Ritchie said. “We’re exploiting the hardware.”