April 2024 - ChimeraX-users - RBVI Mailing Lists

Focus in ChimeraX
by Luca Pellegrini 10 Oct '25

10 Oct '25

Hi, What is the ChimeraX equivalent to the Focus command in Chimera? I have selected a portion of a structure, and would like to bring it into focus without dragging it into view. Also Focus would automatically set the selection as the pivot point. Best wishes, Luca Luca Pellegrini, PhD Department of Biochemistry University of Cambridge Cambridge CB2 1GA lp212(a)cam.ac.uk

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Determining Chirality
by steffen＠sthomas.de 20 Jun '25

20 Jun '25

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Show side chain, main chain, and cartoon at the same time
by Zhang, Miao 27 Feb '25

27 Feb '25

Dear colleagues I am new to ChimeraX. I am trying to figure out how to show side chain, main chain, and cartoon at the same time in a protein structure. Like the one below made in other software. Could you please help? [cid:image001.png@01D9D154.CE3D4440] Best, - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Miao Zhang Ph.D. Associate Professor Chapman University School of Pharmacy 9401 Jeronimo Rd, Suite 297W Irvine, CA 92618 Phone: 714-516-5478 http://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/miao-zhang

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Surface dust command in the .cxc script
by 李泽 24 Feb '25

24 Feb '25

Hi all: I'm trying to use the .cxc script to run the software, I found that the "surface dust" command has never been executed in it. Have anyone met the same problem? Any suggestions. Thank you all. Best, Ze

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Get color code of a custom color
by Ahmad Khalifa 11 Feb '25

11 Feb '25

I created a custom color that I want to use in a different session. is there a way to do that besides trying to match colors by eye? Regards.

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Double and Triple Bond Stick Style
by Smith, Chase 05 Feb '25

05 Feb '25

Dear ChimeraX, I was just wondering why there is no way to represent a double or triple bond in either the ligands or the protein amino acids when viewing as a Stick or Ball-and-Stick representation? I sometimes use Chimera or ChimeraX to make visuals for my lectures, and the students often have difficulty in understanding due to the absence of the multiple bonds. I would love to have the ability to represent the double or triple bonds with multiple lines between the atoms. Thank you, Chase Smith ... ChaseSmith, PhD Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry School of Pharmacy MCPHS University 19 Foster Street | WorcesterMA01608 T 508.373.5717F 508.890.5618C 978.855.7203 chase.smith(a)mcphs.edu www.mcphs.edu MCPHS University Confidentiality Note: This e-mail, and any attachment to it, is intended to be confidential and might be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that reading, copying, disseminating or distributing this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately return it to the sender and delete it from your system. Thank you.

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abbreviation for transparentbackground please
by Anne-Frances Miller 13 Jan '25

13 Jan '25

Dear Sir or Madam, Re. ChimeraX 1.7: the image save option ’transparent background true’ is very long, and typo-prone. Is there an abbreviation or short form please? Thank you - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - • - A.-F. Miller, Ph. D. (she/elle/sie) University Research Professor Professor of Chemistry University of Kentucky https://www.uky.edu/~afm/ Visiting Fellow, Einstein Foundation of Berlin

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Quest 2 Support?
by Blaine Hewitt 27 Dec '24

27 Dec '24

Hello, my name is Blaine Hewitt. Now I know that you have stated previously that you have no intention of bringing support to the Oculus Quest. Which is completely understandable since I know that not only would you have to develop around a completely new Operating System but another CPU architecture and much much more I assume. But with the soon release of the Oculus Quest 2 and it's new XR 2 chip-set makes a pretty good argument for it. As this would allow for much easier use in education (as is what I am attempting to do with it). I think it will be even easier now to push updates with SideQuest <https://sidequestvr.com/> being relatively simple to setup. I know that another (Naome <https://blog.matryx.ai/nanome-on-quest-public-beta-is-now-available-b546321…>) program is already available on the platform. But I do like your program a lot more since it is able to be used for free unlike Nanome Pricing <https://nanome.ai/pricing/> which is... as to say unappealing to public schools (such as mine). I was was also thinking (sorry if I am becoming annoying at this point) that if you do make a version of the Quest that you could make that GitHub branch available to the public. As for example while I may not be great at understanding complex protein structures I can help to make the whole experience more user friendly. Anyways if you read this far thank you for taking time from your day to read this. If you want to know who I am, my name is Blaine I am in my senior year of High School (Waynecsd <https://wh.waynecsd.org/>). I have to do a project by the end of the year where I have to present an area of study I want to pursue and I decided to research the effects of VR on the human's ability to learn and retain information. Budget..... None

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NICE DCV graphics error
by georg.kempf＠fmi.ch 28 Jun '24

28 Jun '24

Dear ChimeraX developers and users, we would like to use ChimeraX in a virtual session using the “NICE DCV” software. We verified that OpenGL hardware rendering is working in the virtual session (glxinfo, glxgears, nvidia-smi) but when opening a structure in ChimeraX, we get the below error. We tried it with different versions of ChimeraX (1.8.dev202311220127, 1.6.1 stable) on Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS. Since the error doesn’t appear when using ChimeraX on the physical display of the same workstation(s) (where the DCV server is running) it must be related to the virtual session context. I was wondering if anyone knows what could be the cause of the error and in which direction to look regarding debugging? This is the traceback from ChimeraX: An error occurred in drawing the scene. Redrawing graphics is now stopped to avoid a continuous stream of error messages. To restart graphics use the command "graphics restart" after changing the settings that caused the error. GLError( err = 1282, description = b'invalid operation', baseOperation = glDrawBuffer, cArguments = (GL_NONE,) ) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/core/updateloop.py", line 84, in draw_new_frame view.draw(check_for_changes = False) File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/view.py", line 188, in draw self._draw_scene(camera, drawings) File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/view.py", line 226, in _draw_scene shadow, multishadow = self._compute_shadowmaps(opaque_drawings, transparent_drawings, camera) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/view.py", line 626, in _compute_shadowmaps multishadow_enabled = r.multishadow.use_multishadow_map(shadow_drawings) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 1628, in use_multishadow_map self._start_rendering_multishadowmap(center, radius, size) File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 1711, in _start_rendering_multishadowmap fb = r.start_depth_render(self._multishadow_map_framebuffer, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 1356, in start_depth_render if not fb.activate(): ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 2309, in activate fbo = self.framebuffer_id ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 2305, in framebuffer_id self._fbo = fbo = self._create_framebuffer() ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 2141, in _create_framebuffer fbo = self._create_fbo(self.color_texture or self._color_rb, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/chimerax/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/graphics/opengl.py", line 2169, in _create_fbo GL.glDrawBuffer(GL.GL_NONE) File "src/errorchecker.pyx", line 58, in OpenGL_accelerate.errorchecker._ErrorChecker.glCheckError OpenGL.error.GLError: GLError( err = 1282, description = b'invalid operation', baseOperation = glDrawBuffer, cArguments = (GL_NONE,) ) Many thanks! Kind regards, Georg

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Bundles with dependencies
by Vincent Mallet 24 Jun '24

24 Jun '24

Hello, Thanks for the tool and the tutorials. I have a machine learning tool based on pytorch to analyse cryo-EM data. I was hoping to package (bundle) it for Chimerax and started to follow tutorials, but I don't think you mention the right way to set up a code environment with depencies. I see a numpy import in the save_new_format tutorial, but it's not listed in the "dependencies" section of the xml file. I guess my question is : can I add arbitrary packages in a bundle ? Is there a way to install pip packages only ? Should I copy all source code in the folder and deal with my imports like that ? In particular, I am thinking of torch that is not so easy to replace... I am hoping you can help me, thanks in advance for the help ! Best, Vincent

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Cinematographic effects in MD movie recording
by Enrico Martinez 17 May '24

17 May '24

Dear Chimera-X users ! I would like to add some cinematographic effects such as changing the camera angle back and forth during a short recording time of MD movies. Could you suggest some scripting tricks that I could add to the following coordset routine: # start recording movie record size 3840,2160 supersample 1 ## play movie from beginning to the end coordset #1 1,1000,1 wait 1000 etc Would it be possible to bend the camera automatically e.g. during the first 250 steps of recording ? Any other possibilities ? Yours with thanks Enrico

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Alphafold
by Chang, Jufang 07 May '24

07 May '24

Dear Sir Recently I can not use the ChimerX to do the alphafold prediction. The error message is some connection to the colab is broken sine March 2024. I am wondering when this feature of ChimeraX will come back? Thank you Ju-Fang ________________________________ The materials in this message are private and may contain Protected Healthcare Information or other information of a sensitive nature. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return mail.

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Problem visualizing hydrogen bonds during a trajectory
by Ute Roehrig 02 May '24

02 May '24

Hello, I'm trying to visualize the hydrogen bonds of a small molecule in water over the trajectory of a molecular dynamics simulation, using the following commands: alias evalhb hide solvent; hb :LIG reveal true coordsets false makePseudobonds true ; view perframe evalhb; coordset #1 1,20 holdsteady :LIG; wait 20; ~perframe However, this does not work as expected. Could you please help me with this issue? Thank you, Ute

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Visualizing PAE contact lines between more than two peptides
by David S. Fay 30 Apr '24

30 Apr '24

Greetings, Was wondering if it’s possible to simultaneously display PAE contact lines for more than two peptides? For example, all contacts between A and B AND B and C etc. Couldn’t find anything on it and have already made the obvious attempts such as "alphafold contacts /A to /C AND /B to /C distance 6” Thanks! David

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Schematic
by Das, Abhinaba 30 Apr '24

30 Apr '24

Hi all, I don’t think it is possible to draw this kind of schematic representation (panel b) in ChimeraX, is it? [cid:image001.png@01DA9A41.C6E2E040] Thanks, Abhi

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Alphafold predicton using ChimeraX
by Chang, Jufang 29 Apr '24

29 Apr '24

Dear Sir, When I tried to use alphafold prediction with ChimeraX, I got this error message. I alreday download the latest version 1.7.1 (2024-01-23). But I still got the same error message. Could you please suggest me what to do the next to fix this? Thank you Ju-Fang AlphaFold Prediction Requires Newer ChimeraX Alphafold prediction requires a ChimeraX daily build from March 19, 2024 or later. The ChimeraX AlphaFold prediction service was broken by an update on Google Colab on March 14, 2024. ________________________________ The materials in this message are private and may contain Protected Healthcare Information or other information of a sensitive nature. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return mail.

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running AlphaFold predictions in ChimeraX
by Elaine Meng 29 Apr '24

29 Apr '24

> On Apr 29, 2024, at 9:31 AM, Chang, Jufang via Chimera-users <chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote: > > Dear Greg > > Recently I can not use the ChimerX to do the alphafold prediction. The error message is some connection to the colab is broken sine March 2024. I am wondering when this feature of ChimeraX will come back? > > Thank you > > Ju-Fang Hello Ju-Fang, As Greg said, you should use the address chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu for ChimeraX questions, not chimera-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu which is for Chimera, and put some description of the current issue in the email subject line. If you get an error running the AlphaFold prediction in ChimeraX and you think it is a bug, please use ChimeraX menu Help... Report a Bug and include a description and your email address. As far as I knew it was working, so we wouldn't know what the problem is for you without more information. Also here are some common issues and limitations of running these predictions: <https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/tools/alphafold.html#caveats> I hope this helps, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco

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Unroll radius?
by Ricardo Righetto 29 Apr '24

29 Apr '24

Hi, We've been using the 'volume unroll' command on a cylindrical structure, and while we do get some very decent results with the defaults, we want to do a systematic comparison with values entered manually for the inner and outer radius. Specifically, I'd like to know if I can get ChimeraX to report what minimum and maximum radii it is currently using for unrolling the volume? Currently, all I get in the reply log is this: volume unroll #1 Opened unrolled SPA_density.mrc as #2, grid size 68,697,492, pixel 1.22,1.2,1.2, shown at step 1, values float32 https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/data/downloads/1.8/docs/UsersGuide/midas/v… From the help here it says: > (...) and inner and outer radii *r1* and *r2* (defaults are 90% of the > smallest radius and 110% of the largest radius of the displayed isosurface, > respectively, given the cylinder center and axis direction). Since this is a high-resolution cryo-EM map with many intricate features, it's hard to visually find exactly what are the smallest and largest radii currently displayed at the isosurface. So we'd like to know what ChimeraX is finding by itself and compare it to our measurements. Any tips are appreciated. Thank you! -- Ricardo Diogo Righetto

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Glb files
by Rowe-Magnus, Dean 28 Apr '24

28 Apr '24

Hello, Can you please tell me how to save a .glb file as a .pdb so that I can use Matchmaker to align the structures? Thank you, Dean

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How to show van der Waals surface
by 我就要柠乐 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Dear Sir/Madam         Recently, I have been using ChimeraX for graphical analysis, and I find the software to be very user-friendly and efficient. I am currently facing a challenge where I want to display the van der Waals surface of a residue, similar to this illustration（https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31526-7）. However, I am not quite sure how to write the command correctly. I have looked up the commands on the official website and tried using these two:surface #1:230； surface style mesh. The bottom is open （the rad circle）, but I would like to have a complete van der Waals surface with closed openings, similar to what is typically seen in the literature. I would appreciate your assistance. Thank you！                                                                                                                       yours  sincerely                                                                                                                       yiwen 我就要柠乐 790639436(a)qq.com  

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Question about visualisation of DNA structure
by Enrico Martinez 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Dear Chimera-X users, I have a question about the visualisation of the DNA structure obtained after tleap processing for Amber. As I have noticed, due to the renaming of the DNA residues, some of the sugar parts are not correctly recognised by Chimera-X (see the attached screenshot) and so these elements are only displayed as organic ligands. Would it be possible to change its style using some commands, assuming that the names of the residues located at the terminal parts of the DNA helix are DC5, DG3 and DT5, DT3 (so that Amber adds numbers to them)? Would it be possible to change the style of all the residues e.g. showing them ass ring fills or like a color bricks (default vizualisation which looks very cool!) using selection expressions like :DT*,DG*,DC*,DA* ? Many thanks in advance ! Enrico

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Add options to snapshot command
by Jaremko, Matt Joseph 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Hello ChimeraX Team, Can you add option to snapshot command like transparentBackground and height to allow more customization of this convenient tool? Thank you, Matt Matt J. Jaremko, Ph.D. (He|Him) Senior Scientist | Protein & Structural Chemistry Merck Research Labs | 126 E Lincoln Ave | 80B 1012 | Rahway, NJ 07065 Cell: 808.741.6277 | Email: matt.jaremko(a)merck.com<mailto:matt.jaremko@merck.com> This e-mail message, together with any attachments, contains information of Merck & Co., Inc. (126 East Lincoln Ave., P.O. Box 2000, Rahway, NJ USA 07065) and/or its affiliates, that may be confidential, proprietary copyrighted and/or legally privileged. (Direct contact information for affiliates is available at - Contact us - MSD<https://www.msd.com/contact-us/>.) It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity named on this message. If you are not the intended recipient, and have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by reply e-mail and then delete it from your system.

3 3

palette command
by Cairns, Claudia Anna 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Dear sir or madam, I try to apply the palette command to change the color range of the mlp command. Unfortunatelly i always get an error. For "palette rainbow" for example I get: rainbow Unknown command: palette rainbow Can you please help me? Sincerely, Claudia Cairns M.Sc. (Biotechnology) Department 'Applied and Molecular Microbiology' Institute of Biotechnology - TIB 4/4-1 Technische Universität Berlin Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25 D-13355 Berlin Phone: +49-(0)30-314-72827 E-mail: c.feurstein(a)tu-berlin.de<mailto:carsten.pohl@tu-berlin.de> Web: <http://www.mikrobiologie.tu-berlin.de> https://www.tu.berlin/mikrobiologie/

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Reconstruction of missed loop fragments
by Enrico Martinez 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Dear Chimera-X user! I am preparing a model of GPCR protein for the molecular dynamics simulation. In this structure there is a loop fragment of 10-20 residues which is missed. Is it possible to reconstruct it (e.g. based on the sequence information or alternatively just add manually the missing fragment) using some tool of Chimera-X e.g. combining with the bond command ? Many thanks in advance ! Enrico

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Greek characters
by Marta Martinez 26 Apr '24

26 Apr '24

Hi guys, I just downloaded a pdb file from AlphaFold DB (AF-P69905-F1-model_v4.pdb). After modifying it with ChimeraX (version 1.6.1 (2023-05-09)) I've saved the modified atomic structure as a cif file. The original pdb file contains this line: COMPND 2 MOLECULE: HEMOGLOBIN SUBUNIT ALPHA; After saving the file as cif format ALPHA is not longer a string but a GREEK character: _entity.pdbx_description "hemoglobin subunit α" Is there any flag in the save command that disables this conversion from plain ASCII to UTF-8? Thank you very much for the answer in advance: MARTA -- Marta Martinez Gonzalez Biocomputing Unit (Lab B13) National Center for Biotechnology-CSIC Darwin, 3. Campus de la Universidad Autonoma de Madrid 28049 Madrid. Spain Tel:+34 915854510 Fax:+34 913720112 E-mail: mmmtnez(a)cnb.csic.es

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