Granularity of genomics data in genome visualisation

Biologists collect genomic data of increasing complexity. New technologies give rise to new data types and the volume of both raw and processed data is growing fast. Biomedical researchers would like to analyze the data using user-friendly interfaces, however, the tools, computer monitors and machines have their limitations and do not always precisely show the data under investigation. We survey different genomics visualisation software including AceDB, SyntenyVista, DerBrowser, Apollo, Artemis, BugView, Ensembl, Sockeye, K-BROWSER, GBrowse, NCBIMapViewer, eQTL Explorer, and Expressionview. This paper presents a short survey of genomic browsers and visualisation effects which were used or can be used in such applications. It presents a classification of genome browsers according to three dimensions and argues the need for a new browser which offers improved zooming functions. This leads us to introduce a new version of SyntenyVista, VisGenome, which allows the user to visualise single and comparative representations of the rat, the mouse, and the human genome at different levels of detail.

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