April 2023 - ChimeraX-users - RBVI Mailing Lists

Question in using ChimeraX ----mesh parameters
by Wang, Shuhui 09 May '23

09 May '23

Hello developers, I have a question in using ChimeraX. May I ask how can I change the density of grids and line size of the mesh for a volume? Best, Shuhui

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Re: [chimerax-users] [Chimera-users] Utilizing Chimera in Web-Based Workflows
by Tom Goddard 09 May '23

09 May '23

Hi Rafi, You could have a Google Colab notebook install ChimeraX and then you could run ChimeraX command in nogui mode or python code through the ChimeraX REST facility, and possibly save images of the graphics to show in the notebook. But I don’t grasp the value of it since ChimeraX is all about interactive visualization where you can rotate and inspect structures. One issue you will face is that ChimeraX cannot be installed without agreeing to a license when dowloading - not sure how you might handle that in a notebook. But I suggest figuring out the valuable use case first. Tom > On Apr 21, 2023, at 5:28 AM, Zach Pearson via Chimera-users <chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote: > > Hi Rafi, > > We are working hard to fully deprecate Chimera, and haven’t made its source code accessible for use or extension outside of the desktop application. I would caution against looking for it; the compilation process is complex and depends on resources that may not even be available anymore. Chimera was also written in Python 2.7, a language the computing community is working hard to put to rest — Colab doesn’t support it anymore! > > We do have plans to release a substantial part of ChimeraX on PyPi this year as a public beta, and I’ll make a note to send you an email when that release happens. Then you should be able to use it in Colab like any other PyPi package. Let me know if I can answer any other questions you may have. > > ------------------- > Zach Pearson > Programmer, ChimeraX Team > UCSF RBVI > zjp(a)cgl.ucsf.edu > > > >> On Apr 20, 2023, at 13:44, Rafi Brent via Chimera-users <chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote: >> >> To whom it may concern, >> I'm wondering if there's any way to access Chimera without having the GUI downloaded on a local computer. Specifically, I'd like to run chimera as part of a public Google Colab (.ipynb) notebook, which would allow users to access the chimera functionality through either installing a PyPi package or calls to a web-accessible API. Do you know of any tool like this, or have any other ideas for how Chimera could be used in Colab notebook? Thanks so much for any advice you may have. >> >> Sincerely, >> Rafi Brent >> _______________________________________________ >> Chimera-users mailing list: Chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu >> Manage subscription: https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimera-users > > _______________________________________________ > Chimera-users mailing list: Chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu > Manage subscription: https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimera-users

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Plugin development: how to install python packages
by BARRY E DEZONIA 01 May '23

01 May '23

Hello, I am developing a chimerax plugin. My code will have some interaction with mdtraj. I need mdtraj to be installed in the python that ships with chimerax. I tried "chimerax -m pip install mdtraj" but I get all kinds of error dialogs popping up in the chimerax instance that gets launched during the installation. I terminate all the error dialogs and then exit chimerax (as the python install seems frozen) and then it indeed says installation has failed and gives unusual error messages (like setuptools was less than version 48.0.0 while chimerax reports it to be 65.x.y and even 66.x.y after upgrading). Can someone tell me the correct syntax to use to install mdtraj in chimerax's python? Thank you.

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How to update the bonding status every frame when viewing a molecular dynamic trajectory?
by 洪冉 30 Apr '23

30 Apr '23

Dear users and developers of ChimeraX, Recently I want to produce some decent movies of a molecular dynamic trajectory, I loaded the pdb file and the trr file into ChimeraX. Everything goes well until some bond broken occurred, the display became very strange since the bond was stretched to an unreasonable length. I have been told a solution by using ~bond, bond #1 to fix the issues. However, it is impossible to do it at every frame when you have to record a movie and your trajectory was with thousands of frames. Thus, I ask for help, is there a solution to update the bonding status of every frame automatically? Yours, Ran

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How to install the "SEQCROW bundle" plug-in for xyz file in ChimeraX1.5?
by 洪冉 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

Dear ChimeraX Developers and Users, I want to view some quantum chemical results from ORCA calculation, and information popped up from ChimeraX telling me that I must install a plug-in called "SEQCROW bundle" for this purpose. However, due to some well-known reasons, I can not fetch this plug-in with the built-in method 'Tools-More Tools'. I think I have to do it in a manual way. Could anyone send me a related file to install this plug-in with a guide showing me how to do it in a manual way. Thanks in advance. Yours, Ran Apri 28 2023

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Python scripts while running MD
by Rafael Rocha 26 Apr '23

26 Apr '23

Dear chimera users! During a molecular dynamics simulation, I would like to run a python script that triggers a specific command once the simulation has reached a certain number of steps or a specific amount of time. I was able to programmatically start, pause, continue and stop a simulation using a primary Isolde object. However, it appears that the script is not waiting until the maximum number of MD steps is reached before moving on to the next command. I've tried using the sleep() python command, but unfortunately, this causes chimeraX to get stuck and unresponsive until the script is finished sleeping. Do you have any suggestions for how I can achieve this without causing chimeraX to freeze up? Thank you for your help! -- Rafael E. O. Rocha, Ph. D. Department of Biological Sciences Federal University of Minas Gerais.

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Manual Averaging Enquiry
by Lenka Milojevic 24 Apr '23

24 Apr '23

Hello! I'd appreciate it if you could detail how manual averaging of multiple .mrc maps can be done in ChimeraX. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Lenka

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Enquires about predicting protein interaction with chimeraX/AlphaFold
by Yiling Lan 21 Apr '23

21 Apr '23

Dear ChimeraX Developers, Hope this email finds you well. I'm currently trying to predict the interaction of 2 proteins after watching the videos on youtube (Running AlphaFold to Predict Protein Complexes from ChimeraX). after installing the CimeraX (UCSF ChimeraX version: 1.6rc202304140213 (2023-04-14) version) but I did not see the check box for "Is prokaryotes? used for predicting complex). May I ask if in newer version the check box for complex prediction is at somewhere else? If it does not bother too much, could you please let me know if there is anyway I can run complex prediction on 1.6rc? Thank you so much. Best Wishes Yiling Lan

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Tunnel visualisation
by Kelly May Frain 20 Apr '23

20 Apr '23

Hello, I am using ChimeraX to visualise a tunnel found in my membrane protein using caver. I can put together the protein pdb and tunnel pdb perfectly. However, crucial to the figure is how the tunnel has a different radius throughout. In PyMol I can see this, but when I set the tunnel to sphere in chimeraX, it’s continuously the same diameter. I can change the colouring to b-factor and here it acknowledges the atom b factor range of 0.8 - 4-8 but I want to visualise the differences. Please can someone help me with a command? BW, Kelly

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Hopefully simple plugin development question
by BARRY E DEZONIA 19 Apr '23

19 Apr '23

Hello, I am looking at writing a plugin for chimerax that takes a pdb and runs some python code that will calc some stuff hand stuff to other programs. I know how to do this. What I want to know is how to find the current model's name / associated pdb filename from my plugin. Imagine my plugin really is just a "Run" button that looks up the current model, generates the associated pdb filename, and passes that name to my python script. Can someone tell me how in a chimerax plugin I can make the call that will give me the pdb filename I want? I've read much of the developer docs and could not find what I was looking for.

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