The electrostatic characteristics of reverse transcriptase in the vicinity of the non-nucleoside inhibitor binding site is also shown. The electrostatic potential is mapped onto a solvent-accessible surface, along with some representative electric field lines. Though it is a science that endeavors to explain phenomena in terms of fundamental entities too small to be seen by the naked eye, chemistry has become one of the most visually dependent sciences. In each case, visualization is the means by which significant information is conveyed and in a manner which optimally promotes comprehension. As our understanding of the chemical sciences advances, we become even more reliant on visualization as a scientific tool.
Scientific images are more than just pictorials, they are the embodiment of properly collected data.
As such, exploratory scientific visualization takes its place beside spectrometry, synthesis, theory, and computation as a valid and useful tool in the chemical sciences. This brief details some examples of exploratory and pedagogical visualizations in various areas of chemistry, as well as in the closely allied fields of materials science, molecular physics, biochemistry, and pharmacology. The hierarchical nature of the datastructure used by Data Explorer facilitates the diverse multiplicity of chemical applications. Chemical data can be scalar, vector, tensor, quarternion, or string and with surprisingly varied dimensionality. Each of these, however, is readily handled within Data Explorer.