- ChimeraX-users - RBVI Mailing Lists

Robust way to setup scene and save image such that zoom and resolution are always the same across different monitors
by Samuel Haysom 09 Jun '25

09 Jun '25

Hello, Is there a recommended set of commands to setup a particular view of a molecule and then save an image of that view such that the size of the molecule within the image, the resolution of the image, and the position of the clipping planes will always be the same regardless of what monitor size/resolution it is taken on? Currently I setup an image using the following commands: e.g. view matrix camera 0.98237,-0.066404,-0.17474,86.421,0.014131,-0.90572,0.42363,190.37,-0.1864,-0.41863,-0.88882,-48.082 clip near -10 far 10 position /R:LIG zoom pixel 0.0348 I then save it using: e.g. save 'dir_path/image.png' width 2000 height 2000 supersample 10 transparentBackground False I often will come back to the same cxc script and want to re-render with e.g. a modified pdb file but still want to get exactly the same view. I can then substitute this picture into a figure I've created in e.g. Inkscape without having to resize the image. However I've noticed that often the new image will not have the same zoom (so the model will be bigger and smaller within the total FOV) which means I have to then manually resize it to match what I already have. I've also noticed that if I render on e.g. my laptop rather than my desktop monitors this effects both the zoom as previously mentioned but also the final resolution of the image as this seems tied to the screen resolution. Is there a way to make it so the image will always look the same regardless of hardware etc.? KR, Sam Samuel Haysom Senior Scientist • Protein Sciences Nxera Pharma UK Limited +44 (0)1223 949201 • Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington Cambridge, CB21 6DG, United Kingdom The information in this e-mail is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended for the exclusive attention of the addressee stated above and should not be copied or disclosed to any other. If you have received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately, make no use of its contents and delete this message from your system. Contact and registered office address: Nxera Pharma UK Limited, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge, CB21 6DG. Company No: 06267989.

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ChimeraX adjacent question about AF2 vs AF3
by David S. Fay 09 Jun '25

09 Jun '25

Greetings, I am curious if others have found AlphaFold3 to be slightly worse or less consistent at predicting protein-protein interactions than AlphaFold2. From the AF3 paper it appeared that they were roughly equivalent, with AF3 perhaps having a slight edge. Certainly when it comes to speed and the handling of large proteins, AF3 is far superior. But over time I’ve found a number of cases where AF2 did a better job based on experimentally supported evidence from our lab. Admittedly, this observation is entirely anecdotal and likely prone to bias. And I get that AF2 may predict some interactions better than AF3 and vice versa. But it’s still makes me wonder and I was curious if others had noticed this pattern or had thoughts on the matter. Thanks in advance. David

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copy from Chimera
by Sherwood Casjens 06 Jun '25

06 Jun '25

Sirs: I recently got a new MacBook Pro computer that is running system Sequoia 15.4.1. We loaded ChimeraX version 1.8 (2024-06-10). It seems to work OK except there is no “copy” command in the edit menu and command-C does not copy sequence in the sequence window of Chimera. Any idea what my problem is? Sherwood Casjens Univeristy of Utah

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Q-Score not shown in output file
by Thu Nguyen 05 Jun '25

05 Jun '25

Hi, I am trying to calculate the Q-score of this density map and structure pair using the Q-Score plugin <https://cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu/apps/chimeraxqscore> in ChimeraX and save the score to the output file. I loaded the 2 files to ChimeraX and used this command "qscore #2 toVolume #1 useGui false pointsPerShell 8 shellRadiusStep 0.100 maxShellRadius 2.00 referenceGaussianSigma 0.60 logDetails false outputFile /Desktop/q_score.txt" However, the output file is empty and I got the error message in ChimeraX. When I removed the outputFile option, it worked as normal and gave me the average score of .32. Do you know why it happened like this and what I should do to fix it? Thank you very much. Best regards, Thu

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Select all truncated amino acids in model (though ISOLDE?)
by Vorländer,Matthias Kopano 05 Jun '25

05 Jun '25

Hi everyone, Is it possible to create a selector or python script to identify/match all truncated amino acids in a model? If not possible directly in ChimeraX, could ISOLDE offer a solution through matching to residue template “TRUNC_CB”? Thanks in advance, Matthias

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Using measure area command
by jillian.baker＠som.umaryland.edu 04 Jun '25

04 Jun '25

Dear ChimeraX community, I am trying to use the 'measure area' command to measure the area using three atoms (essentially trying to calculate the area of a triangle). I have come up with the script of "measure area #2/b:44@o,97@ca,57@hz3" with 2 being model ID, b being the chain, and then the numbers being residues and the atoms are followed by the "@" symbol. I don't quite get an error here, but I get back "No surfaces specified." I can't seem to figure out away to specify a surface or use a different command to calculate the between these three points. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jill

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Align molecule to axes
by Alexander Lee 03 Jun '25

03 Jun '25

Dear ChimeraX community, I have an optimized benzene ring that's floating in space. Is there a way to align that ring to one of the axes' planes so that 2 of the 3 cartesian coordinates read 0,0? Ex: C1 0.00 0.00 z1 C2 0.00 0.00 z2 C3 0.00 0.00 z3 etc Regards, Alex

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Shading from N-terminus to C-terminus?
by Nick Matzke 02 Jun '25

02 Jun '25

Dear ChimeraX list, Thanks so much for this amazing software! I have a kind of obscure question for which I could not find an answer on Google. I've got the FliPQR-FlhB structure, from here: https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6S3L This has 5 copies FliP 1 copy FliR 4 copies FliQ 1 copy FlhB I opened it and am using ribbon view. I've colored the chains by protein type with these commands: color /a,b,c,d,e purple color /f red color /g,h,i,j green color /k yellow Now, I'd like to have each chain shaded from N-terminus to C-terminus, e.g. dark red to light red, or something like that. (I see the rainbow option, but this creates a very complex view if all 11 chains are each an roygbiv rainbow.) Almost as good, is there a way to easily label the N-terminus and C-terminus of each chain? Any suggestions! Thanks so much, Cheers, Nick

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ChimeraX support: Alphafold contacts
by Anthony Newcombe 02 Jun '25

02 Jun '25

Hello I have a commercial license of ChimeraX, I have a question you may be able to help with I have used Structure prediction > Alphafold to predict structures and interactions between 2 proteins and this returned the best_model.pdb But I would like to identify contacts within 8 angstroms, as shown in the Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMcjEecFHaI&list=WL&index=26'm typing the command: alphafold contacts /A to /B distance 8 But receive the error: 'Structure best_model.pdb #1 does not have PAE data opened' Do I need to open something? If you can help that would be much appreciated Many thanks Tony Anthony Newcombe PhD Applied Biopharm Consulting Ltd Cork, Ireland http://www.appliedbiopharm.com<http://www.appliedbiopharm.com/> IE: +353 (0)87 3634486 [cid:image001.png@01DBD2E1.AD97E890] Applied Biopharm Consulting Limited is a company located in the Republic of Ireland Reg. No: 747251, VAT No: IE4188817RH. Registered office: Brook Lodge, Lisnacunna, Ballinascarthy, Clonakilty, Cork, Ireland P85 C832. This message is confidential and intended solely for the recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure, copying or distribution of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by replying to this email and delete the message, its attachments and any copies.

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Comparing Maps
by Abhilash Padavannil 02 Jun '25

02 Jun '25

Hello, I have five different cryoEM maps coming from similar samples. The maps are at different resolutions. I want to compare the density at the region of interest across these maps. How do I normalize the maps say to the first map to make accurate analysis. I know I could scale them using vop scale, but I am wondering which of the parameters I should use. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Abhilash.

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How to create singlke protein from assembly of 5 individual chains
by Jacek Jagodzinski 29 May '25

29 May '25

Hi, I am medicinal chemist. I used ChimeraX to model missing parts/loops of the protein for which I had cryo-EM structure. It is transmembrane protein consisting of 5 individual chains. I managed to reconstruct missing parts using as a template known sequences of publicly available X-ray structures of proteins and known sequences. I have now a nice assembly of five individual “repaired” proteins perfectly aligned with parts of my cryo-EM structure. However the PDB file of those FIVE individual proteins is not recognized as ONE protein with five separate chains by my other programs. I suppose there is a way to get the result I need, but I cannot find the solution by myself. Can you help? Jacek Jagodzinski, PhD

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Use minimization in chimerax using command line
by TUSHAR GUPTA 29 May '25

29 May '25

Good morning I would like to appreciate your work and efforts in developing and maintaining ChimeraX, it has always been so useful tool in my research. I was initially using Chimera that had excellent feature of using amber force field for energy minimization of structure and making movie using topology and coordinate file. I am working on inducing mutation in nucleic acid and protein structures. I wish to incorporate the minimization step in my research using Chimerax. I will be highly grateful if you could guide me how can I use minimization steps in Chimerax using command line codes. Thank you Tushar Gupta PhD biotechnology Bennett University Greater Noida India "He that can have patience can have what he will." - Benjamin Franklin _____________________________________________ Vineet Jain (Chancellor) Inspiration

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Issue in using vop maximum to make composite map
by Dr. Heng Zhou 29 May '25

29 May '25

Dear ChimeraX developers, I have an issue when using vop maximum command to combine two local maps. Map A and Map B have an overlapping area with each other. The hinge point of structural flexibility is at the center of the overlapping area. Therefore, the left part of Map A and the right part of Map B have a better local density quality, which I want to keep in the composite map. But vop maximum did it on the opposite, resulting in a worse local resolution at the edges of the overlapping area (e.g., Region 1 and 2). Technically, this is not an issue of vop maximium itself. In Region 1, Map A has a better local density quality, while Map B has higher values in some voxels. So the composite map has more voxels derived from Map B in Region 1. Vice versa for Region 2. The only solution in my mind is to split both Map A and B at the hinge point, then do vop maximum for only the left part of Map A and the right part of Map B. But this is time-consuming since I have many local maps to combine. I wonder if you have a better solution? I would appreciate it if you could give advices. Thanks! Best regards, Heng Heng Zhou, PhD | Postdoctoral research fellow Stefan Raunser lab | Structural Biochemistry Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology Otto-Hahn-Straße 11, 44227 Dortmund, Germany Phone: +49 231-133-2326

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Disulfide bridges
by Pascal Rochaix 28 May '25

28 May '25

Hello, I am a long time user of PyMOL and I am testing ChimeraX for the first time. Is there a simple command to show the disulfide bridges ? It is easy in PyMOL but I don't find it in ChimeraX... Thanks in advance, Pascal Rochaix Protein Scientist www.metafora-biosystems.com<http://www.metafora-biosystems.com> [Logo mail]Pépinière Paris Biotech Santé 29 rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques | 75014 Paris | France

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Working with c-beta truncated models in ISOLDE
by Vorländer,Matthias Kopano 28 May '25

28 May '25

Hi everyone, Is there a way to work with c-beta truncated models in ISOLDE? For truncated residues, Isolde brings up the unparameterized residues dialog, and matches as a possible template the ligand “TRUNC_CB”, which seems reasonable. Since the model also contains complete sidechains, I would not want to rebuild all residues to template, and doing it residue-by-residue is impractical, too. Can the “rebuild to template for all residues of this name” be limited to a selection? Thanks a lot, Matthias

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swapna command extremely slow for large structures
by Vorländer,Matthias Kopano 27 May '25

27 May '25

Dear ChimeraX team, I have noticed that on some structure I am working with, the swapna command is extremely slow, making it almost unusable for structure manipulation. For a single nucleotide substitution, ChimeraX froze for >5 minutes before finishing the operation (that particular structure had ~300 000 atoms). When I however first delete all proteins from the structure, the operation is very fast. What is the rate limiting step in the swapna command? Does it invoke renumbering of all atoms in the PDB file? Without having quantified it, I experienced similar behavior for the build replace command. Would be fantastic if there would be a way to speed this up to increase its usability! Many thanks in advance, Matthias

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Taking control of the string displayed in a pbond associated tooltip
by svle＠tiscali.it 27 May '25

27 May '25

Hi, I have specified some pseudobonds using pbond. It is possible to add a string, conveying other related informations , to that displayed in the tooltip when hovering the mouse on the pseudobond? Also, it is possible to take the complete control of what is displayed in the tooltip? Thanks. Saverio

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How do I get Modeller structure if there was a connection timeout error on ChimeraX?
by Andy Liwang 23 May '25

23 May '25

Dear ChimeraX, I used “Model Loops” on a large protein and even though ChimeraX indicated “Modeller Webservice: 1 of 1 models generated”, it also gave the following error message: modeller refine<help:user/commands/modeller.html#refine> 1:1:all-missing 1/A:1:all-missing numModels 1 fast false adjacentFlexible 1 protocol standard Webservices job id: RO5U9U0YU7YY6TM5 2025-05-23 15:51:56,220 WARNING Retrying (Retry(total=2, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'ConnectTimeoutError(<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0x32f0aa350>, 'Connection to webservices.rbvi.ucsf.edu timed out. (connect timeout=None)')': /cxservices/api/v1/chimerax/jobs/RO5U9U0YU7YY6TM5/files Am I able to retrieve the model from webservices.rbvi.ucsf.edu<http://webservices.rbvi.ucsf.edu/>? Sincerely yours, Andy LiWang Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry University of California Merced, CA 95343

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Problem using pbond
by svle＠tiscali.it 23 May '25

23 May '25

Hi, I would like to use pbond with a pair of atoms. For one of these it is available the model number , the chain ID and the atom serial number. How it is possible to give the atom specification ,having the previous three information, for using it in pbond? Thanks. Saverio

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remotecontrol observations and suggestions
by Roden Deng Luo 23 May '25

23 May '25

Hi, This is to share my observations and practices mainly with people using `remotecontrol xmlrpc`, likely developers. `xmlrpc` has a very high overhead, `remotecontrol rest` with "multipart/form-data" header POST requests should be a better option. First, the REST method can also be used programmatically in scripts or applications fairly easily. I have been sending GET requests using the REST method. Then, I hit "Request-URI Too Long" as I am sending decent sized json data (17KB). Then I tried XML-RPC and realized the frame rate dropped from 58 to 8. The frame rate can be displayed at the status line via `graphics rate true`. Then GPT guided me to try POST with "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" as Content-Type. I got stuck here for a while and found _parse_post <https://github.com/RBVI/ChimeraX/blob/3233aaaf01623ca24bccff7196410401872ce…> returns "fields" in binary and the program could not parse args["command"] <https://github.com/RBVI/ChimeraX/blob/3233aaaf01623ca24bccff7196410401872ce…> as what's inside is b"command". Then I refactored my client to POST with "multipart/form-data" and it worked. More details in my conversations with bots: URL too long: https://chatgpt.com/share/682c856c-174c-8003-bfc9-96fa7e2db0c3 Frame rate cmd: https://chatgpt.com/share/682c8589-2da0-8003-8c14-a59b75927c6b XML-RPC overhead: https://chatgpt.com/share/682c85a7-5f40-8003-8615-095e0a28fccd POST: https://chatgpt.com/share/682c85ca-9938-8003-bb0b-1fb7dd7938ef Best, Roden -- This message and its contents, including attachments are intended solely for the original recipient. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this message in error, please notify me immediately and delete this message from your computer system. Any unauthorized use or distribution is prohibited. Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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Commercial vs personal use
by Smith, Timothy 22 May '25

22 May '25

Hello, I previously used ChimeraX for my academic work during my PhD and would like to continue using it for personal use. I do work for a biotech company and while I don't use ChimeraX for work related to my job, I do only have a work issued computer where IT needs to install software. My question is would I still need a commercial license even if I only use it for personal use on my work computer? Thanks, Tim

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1.10 Release Candidates Available Now
by Zach Pearson 21 May '25

21 May '25

Hello ChimeraX users, The first release candidate of ChimeraX 1.10 is available for download today. — Zach

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request help about chimeraX
by Pietro Rizza 21 May '25

21 May '25

hi, thank you for your reply...I hope to explain clearly my problem In attached you will see the file saved with CHIMERA X and I' d like to open my data, in particular SCORE, ENERGY OF POSES in the Biovia Studio DIscover Visualizer....... If you see the second attached.....are reported the several energy of poses (indicated by red arrow) probably I save my data in CHIMERAX IN NOT CORRECT WAY? Why do I not open the energy of poses in Biovia Studio Discover Visualizer? thank you again sincerely Pietro -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Il banner è generato automaticamente dal servizio di posta elettronica dell'Università della Calabria <https://www.unical.it/5x1000>

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Re: request your help about ChimeraX
by Elaine Meng 21 May '25

21 May '25

> On May 21, 2025, at 7:19 AM, Pietro Rizza <pietro.rizza(a)unical.it> wrote: > > Hi Dr Meng > Please you could help me, how do you save the data in CHIMERAX? > How can I save the energy of different poses? > Thanks in advance > Sincerely > Pietro > Hi Pietro, It is better to send questions to the chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu address (CC'd here so you don't have to send it again), unless you are including private data. If you send only to me, it may not get answered. I removed your attachment in case it was private, but I see you are using ViewDockX. Of course, the energies and other descriptors of each pose are read from your original input file, so they are already "saved" there, but maybe you are trying to save as a spreadsheet format like CSV? It was not clear from your question. The ViewDockX "Save" button will just save another file that has all of the coordinates as well as the scores (like your original input file). There is no option to save a CSV file from the table, sorry. The only similar possibility is to convert the ViewDockX columns into a model attribute with this recipe <https://rbvi.github.io/chimerax-recipes/vdx_attrs/vdx_attrs.html> ... and then use the "save" command to save an attribute file <https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/save.html#attributes> ... but in my opinion it would be MUCH easier just to process these values from your original input file (the one output by the docking program). You just can't do it with ChimeraX, sorry. Regards, 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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Questions about alphafold interfaces output discrepancies
by Bruno Hay Mele 20 May '25

20 May '25

Hi! I am dabbling with the alphafold interfaces command, and I cannot make sense of the data. In my user case, the table synthesis produced by the command says: Models Confident pairs #Res1 #Res2 4 23 12 12 opening the best model produces these relevant lines in the log 200 atoms, 188 bonds, 24 residues, 1 model selected alphafold contacts last-opened & /A toAtoms last-opened & /B distance 4.0 maxPae 5.0 Found 14 residue or atom pairs within distance 4 with pae <= 5 in the csv, the same model has these relevant columns: distance, max_pae, num_res1, num_res2, num_interface_res1, 4, 5, 246, 246, 20, num_interface_res2, num_interface_res_pairs, num_confident_pairs, 20, 42, 23, interface_res_num1, interface_res_num2 12 values 12 values I am struggling a bit to reconcile all these numbers. The 24 residues selected by chimera after opening are not anywhere else. I suppose these are #Res1 + #Res2 of the synthesis (and interface_res_num1 + interface_res_num2 in the csv)? Both the log synthesis and the csv report 23 as number of confident pairs, but the log message after opening best model says 14 residues (I assume these are those within the distance/pae constraint?) Why Confident pairs is not #Res1 + #Res2? I am also a little bit puzzled by the csv where I read num_interface_res_pairs = 42 and num_interface_res1, num_interface_res2 20 ( I was expecting either 21,21 for num_interface_res or 40 for num_interface_res_pairs. I attach the prediction I was using for diagnosing the problem. cheers, -- Bruno Hay Mele, PhD 2D-20, Biology Dept., University of Naples Federico II https://github.com/bhym/ | +39 081 67 9118

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