ENVISION Software Package for concerted study of biological data

The ENVISION software package aims to help in the comparison, coordination, visualization, storage, and exploration of biological data.

The study of biological data is difficult, because what may be mathematically or statistically significant is not necessarily biologically significant. Biological data must be interpreted in light of experimental results and methods. Therefore, experimentalists are needed in the analysis of biological data, analyses that often entail the comparison of homologous sequences or structures. However, finding the correct software, using the software intelligently, plus integrating, comparing, disseminating, validating and storing results can be a monumental and confusing task.

Questions often asked by experimentalists include the following:

Which software application is appropriate? How do I compare results between applications? Are the results correct? How do I compare and coordinate alignment data, phylogenetic data, structural data, etc? How do I query the data? How can I visualize the results of biological queries? How can I save my results? How can I share my results? Can this process be automated in anyway?

Explicit goals of the envision software package include:

• Viewers that share and synchronize application events.

• The ability to compare results of similar applications in the same window.

• A dynamic self contained database that requires no administration and contains all information

• Local and remote databases for sharing of information.

• An advanced query language that allows experimentalist to form complex, understandable queries without a rigid syntax.

• Viewer window geometry and content is saved in script format for export, demonstrations, auto-mation, and the ability to pick up exactly where you left off.

• Platform independent.

• Most importantly free of charge.

More information about the ENVISION software package