Molecular Rendering with Medieval and Renaissance Color Theory

This paper describes the application of Medieval and Renaissance color theory to the computer graphic rendering of molecular models. In particular, Alberti´s and Cennini´s color theories were employed to render shaded geometric primitives such as cylinders and spheres that are the components of traditional ball-and-stick and space filling molecular models. These results were compared with standard rendering based on the OpenGL API or through ray tracing. It is found that by implementing Alberti´s and Cennini´s color theories as color maps within a simple chemical illustration program it is possible to create molecular imagery comparable to contemporary computer graphics schemes.