A couple of things: 3DS Max supports importing VRML (.wrl) files, so you'd be better off using the latest chimera, 1.2304, and exporting VRML for direct import into 3ds Max. As for biopython/blender, I believe you'd be better off using chimera to export to blender using the X3D format. Chimera understands PDB files better than biopython, generates ribbons and molecular surfaces, deals with volume data easily (see http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/ for details), and blender can do wonderful animations and other postprocessing. It's a more powerful combination. Greg Couch UCSF Computer Graphics Lab On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Jonathan Hilmer wrote:
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:09:12 -0600 From: Jonathan Hilmer <jkhilmer@gmail.com> To: chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu Subject: Re: [Chimera-users] Chimera-users Digest, Vol 42, Issue 19
Although this does not relate to your question on licensing, is there any particular reason you're using such a complicated workflow? Chimera can be used to generate basic geometry (sphere/cylinder) from PDB files via povray, but so could any import system you have for the 3D modeling software. You would also lose the benefit of chemistry-centered structure for manipulation or selection: chains, residues, etc.
I've been using Blender to handle complicated chemical models for a while now, and it wasn't that difficult to implement the import of various data types. With BioPython pdb files become trivial, and volumetric data sets are (very) difficult but possible.
Jonathan
Hello-
Do any of you have an idea of how much a single commercial license for Chimera would cost?
I'm a 3D artist/animator/biology student that works at in the art dept. of a biotech company. I'm interested in the exporting .pdb files to .pov, then converting to .3ds to import to 3ds max.
Thanks,
Lydia Jablonski
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