Architecting 3D Interactive Educational Applications for the Web: The Case Study of CrystalWalk
by
Fernando Bardella 1,*
, Rafael Castilho de Moraes 1, Thanos Saringelos 2, Alexandros Karatzaferis 2, Andre Montes Rodrigues 1, Andre Gomes da Silva 1 and Ricardo Mendes Leal Neto 1
Fernando Bardella 1,*, Rafael Castilho de Moraes 1, Thanos Saringelos 2, Alexandros Karatzaferis 2, Andre Montes Rodrigues 1, Andre Gomes da Silva 1 and Ricardo Mendes Leal Neto 1
1
Research Group for Scientific Visualization in Materials (GVCM) at the Center for Materials Science and Technology (CCTM), Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (IPEN-CNEN/SP), 2242 Prof. Lineu Prestes Av, Sao Paulo 05508-000, Brazil
2
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania 731 00, Greece
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Multimodal Technologies Interact. 2018, 2(3), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/mti2030056
Received: 20 August 2018 / Revised: 1 September 2018 / Accepted: 5 September 2018 / Published: 7 September 2018
This paper describes the technical development of CrystalWalk, a crystal editor and visualization software designed for teaching materials science and engineering aiming to provide an accessible and interactive platform to students, professors and researchers. Justified by the lack of proper didactic tools, an evaluation of the existing crystallographic software has further shown opportunities for the development of a new software, more focused on the educational approach. CrystalWalk’s was guided by principles of free software, accessibility and democratization of knowledge, which was reflected in the application’s architecture strategy and the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies for the development of interactive web applications, such as HTML5/WebGL, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and responsive, resilient and elastic distributed systems. CrystalWalk’s architecture was successful in supporting the implementation of all specified software requirements proposed by state-of-the-art research and deemed to exert a positive impact in building accessible 3D interactive educational applications for the web.
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Keywords:
educational platforms; computer graphics; interactive web applications; service-oriented architecture (SOA); distributed systems; crystallographic software
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MDPI and ACS Style
Bardella, F.; Moraes, R.C.; Saringelos, T.; Karatzaferis, A.; Rodrigues, A.M.; Silva, A.G.; Neto, R.M.L. Architecting 3D Interactive Educational Applications for the Web: The Case Study of CrystalWalk. Multimodal Technologies Interact. 2018, 2, 56.
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