Hi Vijay, The MSMS molecular surface calculation (Actions / Surface / show) fails on some molecular models. The mailing list describes some tricks that might make surface calculation work: http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimera-users/2010-January/004713.html An alternative is to use a Gaussian surface instead of the MSMS solvent excluded surface, using the command (Favorites / Command-Line) molmap #0 3 gridSpacing 0.5 to make a 3 Angstrom surface for molecular model #0. Then use the Color Zone dialog (menu Tools / Volume Data / Color Zone) to color the surface to match selected atoms within a specified distance from the atoms. You can select all the atoms with menu Select / Select All or use command "select #0". The Gaussian surface doesn't look much like a solvent excluded surface -- it puts a Gaussian at each atom position to compute a density map. If you prefer the solvent excluded surface then look at the above mailing list message for suggestions. Tom

Hi Tom, Greetings, Hope all is well

I have a question about generating surfaces. When I load a simple PDB and try to display surfaces... by selecting a molecule,

Actions/Surface/Show

I get the error Surface calculation failed, mscalc returned code 2

I could always generate a surface using multiscale models in HIgher order structure... But how can I can color the surface corresponding to different region of the protein surface (corresponding to few residues) in selected colors.

Many thanks,

Kind regards Vijay

======================================== Vijay S. Reddy, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Molecular Biology, TPC6 The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037

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