Two years ago, we released an experiment to the fledging Steam VR community. Nano-one, our earliest iteration of a molecular design sandbox, quickly found a community of over 1300 users and unanimously positive reviews. For decades, innovators have experimented with new ways to visualize the invisible world, using everything from physical models to early VR tools, like the CAVE. nano-one, however, was the first of its kind: a molecular lab for modern VR systems.

Visualizing molecules in the CAVE, an early VR system.

As the waves at Nanome started rolling, we put nano-one development on hiatus to focus on enterprise, professional, and research tools. But throughout the creation and release of Nano Pro, Calcflow, and Matryx, nano-one and its subsequent learnings stayed on our radar. Nano-one was an experiment, a wildly successful one at that, and a foundational stride towards fulfillment of the Nanome vision.

We chose the name nano-one to suggest a tool that was simple, atomic and functional. (NANO1 is also the name of the entry nanoengineering course at UCSD). But much like our internal team, the nano-one community speculated endless potential. We received reviews and inquiries with thoughtful, specific feature and expansion requests. These suggestions were an accurate forecast of those we would receive from professional and enterprise customers months and years down the road.

We are grateful to nano-one early-adopters for engaging our experiment and proving our wild hypothesis: immersive STEM interfaces are badly needed. nano-one is the first immersive molecular visualization tool to grow into a community. And that means a lot to us at Nanome.

Today, we’d like to nod our heads to the nano-one community and let them know that good things come to those who wait. This summer, we’re releasing Nanome, for free. Its a robust, bottom-up construction of the ultra-modern workspace nano-one users dreamed about. We’ve implemented and iterated upon many of the oft-requested features nano-one users requested. And we’ve returned from the big pharma battlefront with UX insights, nuanced features, and adaptive-workflow.