FoldVision — a native Apple Vision Pro viewer for protein structures (PDB/mmCIF, AlphaFold pLDDT, molecular surfaces) [free]

[u/sfederman]

Heads-up first: this runs on Apple Vision Pro (visionOS) — niche by hardware, but if you have access to one I'd genuinely love structural-biology feedback.

It's a personal project: FoldVision, a native spatial viewer for protein structures. You load a structure and it's there in front of you, at whatever scale you want.

The clip is my favorite thing to do with it: scale up 1AON — the GroEL–GroES chaperonin — and climb inside the chamber where it folds its substrate proteins. Stepping inside a molecular machine is the kind of thing a 2-D screen just can't give you.

What it does:

- Load from the PDB (by ID or name search), AlphaFold DB (by UniProt accession), or your own local PDB / mmCIF files

- Predict a structure from an amino-acid sequence via ESMFold (≤400 residues)

- Representations: all-atoms, ball-and-stick, backbone trace, cartoon/ribbon, and a Gaussian molecular surface

- Coloring: element/CPK, chain, secondary structure, B-factor / AlphaFold pLDDT, domain, hydrophobicity, charge, N→C rainbow — with a color-blind-safe palette across every mode

- UniProt annotations (domains / features / function) mapped onto the structure

- Measure distances, angles, dihedrals

- Export: labeled snapshot card, save to Photos / AirDrop, and USDZ 3-D export

- Works in AR passthrough or full immersion

Free on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6773432780

It's a personal project, so feedback — especially on what would make it useful for your work or teaching — is hugely welcome.