MarvinSpace is a Java-based 3-dimensional molecular structure visualization program. Its main purpose is to display macromolecules including proteins, nucleic acids and protein-ligand complexes. MarvinSpace is an interactive program, which means that it does not merely display a static image but it allows the user to manipulate the structure: look at it from different positions, various distances etc. MarvinSpace can also be used to display and manipulate small molecules, particularly if high quality rendering is required.

MarvinSpace is built on OpenGL, the industry standard 3D visualization language to render high quality molecular scenes. Besides high image quality, OpenGL also provides efficiency that allows real-time manipulation of molecular structures. OpenGL supports hardware acceleration, so it can fully exploit the capabilities of the particular graphics card being used.