Flatland's potential can be seen in an application related to one of the more difficult problems in scientific visualization: the folding of protein molecules in a solution, a key process in the search for new drug therapies.

In the visualization, the water molecules appeared as tetrahedrons with one large ball at the center representing an oxygen atom and two smaller balls at the ends of sticks representing hydrogen atoms, their colors indicating proximity to the electrical field.

"We could look at things from different perspectives, trying different hypotheses for why the hydrogen didn't bind until we uncovered our error."

The latest effort with Flatland is a "situational awareness" visualization for network intrusion detection.

The LAN will be represented as a landscape being defended from potential attackers in a surrounding dome-like sky. The Internet and its different domains and regions will be distributed in the sky as constellations, with unusual patterns or intrusion attempts immediately recognizable.