Advancements in computer graphics and simulation technologies have opened new avenues for studying complex biological systems in a visually immersive, interactive and multi-scale manner. Concurrently, biologists are unraveling the fundamental principles explaining how a single cell robustly develops into a mesmerizingly complex organism, known as us - humans.
Despite the success of existing Blender applications in visualizing molecules (i.e. MolecularNodes), simulating and capturing plausible cellular shapes and interactions has been overlooked, especially in 3D. Therefore, we introduce Goo, a Blender extension designed for biologists, science communicators, and illustrators, providing them with the tools to simulate, study, and visualize how biological cells physically behave in a tissue in 3D. The software is open-source and maintained by the Megason Laboratory at Harvard University - https://github.com/smegason/Goo.
Antoine is an Associate and Image Analyst at Harvard Medical School, Boston. His research includes modeling and simulating the emergence of multicellular organization in 3D using simple mathematical equations and computer graphics.