Another terribly brief report from the Gordon Conference on Visualization. The chemistry bias comes to the fore again, with this spiffy look at polyhedral models of molecular structures. This is just one of several types of molecular model kicking around, but in the words of the supporting web documentation… “The polyhedral model, where a cation surrounded by its anions is represented by a single polyhedron, is useful for visualizing how structural components fit together. Only atoms belonging to complete polyhedra are shown.”

Hmm, well, maybe, two things won me over: first, there’s a model kit (that uses pompoms), but that’s complemented by a webpage full of links to virtual interactive structures (e.g., sodium chloride, as above).

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about these kind of complementary experiences lately (not just because of the conference). Being able to manipulate a physical model, tinker around, and assemble things with your hands stimulates the brain in one way; fiddling with an electronic model, tinkering around, and assembling things with your mind’s eye stimulates it in another. Taken together, the experiences can be powerfully reinforcing.

Just a thought, anyway.

Oh, and I like the way you can make the polyhedral surfaces partially transparent in the interactive, virtual version.