Hi Matt,
We don’t have a guide to porting Chimera 1 extensions to ChimeraX yet. We have not yet even made an alpha release of ChimeraX, and have just one outside developer who is writing a new extension rather than porting an old one.
We will be providing info on porting extensions in the future. A major ChimeraX goal is to improve support for extension developers. Here are some basics about porting.
1) Chimera 1 uses the Tk window tookit for dialogs, menus, buttons, … while ChimeraX uses the Qt toolkit.
2) All attributes of molecules and maps are accessible from Python in both Chimera 1 and ChimeraX.
3) Methods for density maps are mostly identical in Chimera 1 and ChimeraX.
4) Methods for molecules, atoms, residues are mostly the same but with some changes (e.g. alt locs are different, chain ids can be longer than 1 character …)
5) To get better performance operating on large numbers of atoms there are new numpy array based methods to change atom attributes.
6) The packaging of an extension is different. Chimera 1 uses a ChimeraExtension.py file. ChimeraX uses Python wheels and a online distribution site called Tool Shed, https://cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu <https://cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu/>, and ChimeraX menu Tools / General / Toolshed allows one click installs of any tools.
7) Chimera 1 did not provide programming API documentation, while ChimeraX has API documentation http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/devel/index.html <http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/devel/index.html>
8) Chimera 1 used Python 2, ChimeraX uses Python 3. Python 3 import statements and print statements are different and integer divide produces a float, but mostly it is the same.
Most Chimera 1 extensions have a graphical user interface in Python / Tk that is often a lot of the code. Now we use Python / Qt because support for Tk is poor. Qt is totally different so all graphical user interface will have to be rewritten.
Tom
> On Jan 12, 2017, at 11:51 AM, Dougherty, Matthew T wrote:
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> Are there any guidelines, docs or examples as to converting extensions into chimeraX?
>
> Matthew Dougherty
> National Center for Macromolecular Imaging
> Baylor College of Medicine
> =================================================
> =================================================
Hi Giorgio,
Thanks for the explanation. So Maya and Cinema4d can’t directly read Collada with vertex colors and preserve the coloring? Chimera uses vertex colors instead of textures for multicolor surfaces. Can your meshlab file conversion process work with the X3D output from Chimera and ChimeraX? I know X3D is not very well supported.
What advantage do you see in using ChimeraX instead of Chimera for this model export? ChimeraX has completely reliable surface calculation where Chimera fails for large molecules. There is a semi-secret Chimera option to the surface command “grid 0.5” that makes Chimera use the reliable surface calculation from ChimeraX but the resulting surface is not associated with the atoms that generated it so copying colors from the atoms is more difficult (need to use the Chimera Color Zone tool). ChimeraX has nice ambient occlusion lighting that Chimera lacks, but that is not exported in scene files.
Tom
> On Jan 4, 2017, at 11:14 AM, Giorgio Luciano wrote:
>
> Hello thanks for the reply. So the idea is this. Genrally I need to import molecules in other software (maya+renderman, cinema4d+arnold). One of the problem I had was to "save" in some way the information of the materials of the models. Let's say I have calculated a properties of my molecule and I wanted to code it in the color (hydrophobicity for example, a particular charge density and so on). So since it was not easy to mantain it I generally did the following
> 1) save as dae
> 2) import in meshlab
> 3) create a blank texture and then color the texture from the info in the vertex texture.
> In this way I can then export the info in all the software I want (including zbrush for example and so use subsequently KEYSHOT for a fast cool render).
> If needed I can create a small video about that :)
> Now the problem is that I cannot do it anymore in the new chimera :) So every format that can save the model+colors would be perfect. DAE seems the one to work better for now (can be imported withouth loss in meshlab and blender)
> Thanks for creating such a great software :)
> Giorgio
>
> Il giorno mar 3 gen 2017 alle ore 20:46 Tom Goddard <goddard(a)sonic.net <mailto:goddard@sonic.net>> ha scritto:
> Hi G,
>
> ChimeraX will eventually export OBJ and Collada 3d formats but we don’t have a schedule for that. It currently exports STL for use with 3d printers (single color). We also can save X3D, again added for 3d printers (multi-color). Some ChimeraX code (cellPACK tool) reads Collada, but does not write it, but the PyCollada library is in ChimeraX so that is a start towards writing it. We have a hundred different features we want to get into ChimeraX eventually and their priority depends on how compelling the use is. It would help if you told us why you want OBJ and Collada export, and why it is an advantage to get it into ChimeraX versus using the current capability in Chimera 1.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> > On Dec 29, 2016, at 11:01 AM, Giorgio Luciano <giorgio.luciano(a)gmail.com <mailto:giorgio.luciano@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Dear all, just a message to ask if in CHIMERA X is on the roadmap an obj, dae export.
> > G.
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