In the previous message, I included links to the development documentation. Because there have been recent changes in Volume Path Tracer, users should instead consult the documentation for Volume Path Tracer in the last production release of Chimera: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/1.2199/docs/ContributedSoftware/ volumepathtracer/framevolpath.html (or, use the Help menu in Chimera to access documentation that goes with your downloaded version) Sorry about that, Elaine On Sep 11, 2006, at 10:31 AM, Elaine Meng wrote:
Hi Masako, You cannot measure distances on the VRML object directly in Chimera.
However, you could use the Volume Path Tracer tool to place markers at the ends of the object, then measure the distance between the markers.
Volume Path Tracer: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/ volumepathtracer/framevolpath.html
measuring distances: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/ structuremeas/structuremeas.html#distances
Or, for an indication of scale rather than a measurement, you could use the Scale Bar tool: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/scalebar/ scalebar.html
All these ways will show numbers based on the units of the VRML input. So you would need to know whether those units were angstroms, nanometers, or something else. I hope this helps, Elaine