Hi Vishal, Actually you can do this with a Chimera command script, as opposed to programming in Python. A command script just contains the same commands you would enter in the Command Line. I'm not sure of what type of saving you had in mind, " but the "copy" command can be used to save an image file, "save" to save a session, and "write" to save a PDB file. This page links to all the command man pages, plus it discusses command scripts (at the bottom): http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/1.2199/docs/UsersGuide/framecommand.html Just opening the command file will execute the commands. Here are links to a couple of example command files: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/1.2199/docs/UsersGuide/tutorials/ setup.com http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/recorder/ 1gfl.com And here is another, between the dashed lines: ----------------------------------------------------------------- open 1hxx open 1pho modelcolor coral #0 modelcolor cornflower blue #1 ~disp; rep bs; ribbon; ribrepr smooth matchmaker #0 #1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- I guess the main difficulty if you are saving images is how to get a good view of the structures. Usually some rotation, scaling, etc. is done interactively to make a better picture. I hope this helps, Elaine On Sep 27, 2006, at 7:29 PM, Vishal Pua wrote:

Hi, I was wondering if there was a way to create a script, that would open pdb files, render them to look a certain way ex. wire or ribbon, then save, automatically? this would have to work for a number of pdb files? I have little programming experience, and wonder if there was an easy way to do this, thanks

Vishal Pua _______________________________________________ Chimera-dev mailing list Chimera-dev@cgl.ucsf.edu http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimera-dev

----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. meng@cgl.ucsf.edu UCSF Computer Graphics Lab and Babbitt Lab Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/meng/index.html