No -- that would overcount the area, because it would overlap for neighboring dots. The area is an *estimate* for the piece of surface around the dot that is not assigned to any other dot. If you added up the areas for all the dots for one atom, it would *approximately* equal the surface area for that atom. However, to get the total area for an atom, residue, etc., don't do that -- just use the already existing areaSES (and areaSAS) attributes of atoms and residues. <http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/representation.html#surfaces

Elaine On Nov 12, 2009, at 10:34 AM, Yasser Almeida Hernández wrote:

Thanks for your help... About the estimated surface area in the 8th field, i view this number as the area enclosed by the neighboring dots, where the guessing dot is the center of a square formed by this dots. What do you think about that?

*-----* | | | * | | <-|-- Area *-----*