If you color a molecular surface with the Electrostatic Coloring tool in Chimera (menu Tools / Surface & Binding Analysis) using a Delphi or APBS electrostatics map, then close the map file using Model Panel (menu Favorites), then save the session (menu File / Save Session As…), then restart Chimera and load the session and the surface coloring is still there but the map is not used. Tested in current Chimera version 1.10.2.

On Oct 28, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Broyde, Joshua E. wrote:

Dear Tom,
Hope all is going well. I had a quick question about coloring surfaces by electrostatics and other properties. Currently, when you color surfaces with electrostatic potentials (e.g. with delphi .phi files) the molecular surfaces are colored by the delphi files, which are loaded into the chimera session everytime the chimera session is loaded. If the delphi files are deleted, the surfaces cannot be colored. Also, the delphi file has to be loaded every time the session is started, which can take a very long time (some of these delphi files are > 1 G). Is there a way to "permanently" color the molecular surfaces with the electrostatic potential, so that the delphi files have to be loaded only once?

Sincerely,
Joshua Broyde