Compressed representations of macromolecular structures and properties.

We introduce a new and unified, compressed volumetric representation for macromolecular structures at varying feature resolutions, as well as for many computed associated properties. Important caveats of this compressed representation are fast random data access and decompression operations. Many computational tasks for manipulating large structures, including those requiring interactivity such as real-time visualization, are greatly enhanced by utilizing this compact representation. The compression scheme is obtained by using a custom designed hierarchical wavelet basis construction. Due to the continuity offered by these wavelets, we retain very good accuracy of molecular surfaces, at very high compression ratios, for macromolecular structures at multiple resolutions.