Sumo. A Sonification Utility for Molecules

Abstract

In this paper we present SUMO, an open source software environment, which is designed to facilitate the open development of molecular sonifications for everyday research in chemistry and structural biology. Sonifications of chemical data are developed since more than 25 years but surprisingly auditory display is not yet a scientifically established mode to interact and explore molecular data. Before presenting SUMO we introduce the implications of presenting molecular data to the sonification community. For chemists and structural biologists, we briefly review different sonification approaches made so far and discus their potential. Within this broader scope we situate SUMO, the lab proof sonification framework. We describe the software environment in detail and present two implementations of methods for sonifying conformations of amino acids and B factors.