- ChimeraX-users - RBVI Mailing Lists

Publication Request
by Russell Couch 29 Aug '25

29 Aug '25

Hello UCSF! My name is Russell and I am a 17 year old student seeking approval from the developers to use ChimeraX in the publication of educationally-intended (not commercially-intended) content I would like to design using the program and animate separately. I would like to use ChimeraX to, for example, compile individual proteins into a complete infectious pathogen in order to demonstrate the roles of individual proteins in the process of infection, disease progression, and possible treatment. I want to firmly state that my personal purpose of the publication is educational, though I understand YouTube is inherently a commercial platform. When complete, the videos would be uploaded to a brand new, unmonetized channel dedicated to my educational publications. There would be no other co-collaborators, as in people frequently working with me and using ChimeraX to produce educational content. This is a personal project and I would be the only one using the program to produce my content. If another creator wanted to collaborate with me using their own research and resources (assuming they have all the proper permission like I'm asking for), would that be allowed, assuming the collaboration is occasional and on a per-video basis rather than consistent or unifying, such as two channels deciding to join together? On a bit of a more personal note, I am applying to college soon and am very interested in a couple of colleges in California. I am very passionate about engineering, particularly chemical engineering, and I believe the cures of tomorrow are waiting to be discovered. I am on a mission to discover them and make them available to all. While I am determined to be the change I want to be no matter where I go, I would like to attend a good engineering school if possible, and am personally very attracted to the idea of going to college in California. Some of the very best engineering schools in the country are in California, and getting into them would be a dream come true, though I am realistic and prepared to achieve my goals without any of their external resources. These resources, while valuable, mean nothing without the internal drive to strive. Regardless of acceptance, the colleges in California most intriguing to me are UCB, Caltech, and Stanford, though UCSD, Irvine, Davis, and many other schools there all have fantastic engineering programs, and are more statistically favorable in terms of acceptance, though still quite selective. I know UCSF is a medical school, but it shares with these colleges very high selectivity, and I would love to gather any potential advice, especially coming directly from another top college. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my request and am very excited to use ChimeraX, whether for personal or educational use. Sincerely, Russell Couch

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Coloring different regions
by Vojo P Deretic 29 Aug '25

29 Aug '25

Hi How to color different domains in a structure in ChineraX. I tried selecting residues on the sequence and can get an outline over the selection but how do I color different regions and keep all of them differently colored plus save the work? Thanks Sent from my iPhone with lots of typos and autocorrect nonsense - my apologies...

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ISOLDE installation error
by Zhou, Tongqing (NIH/VRC) [E] 27 Aug '25

27 Aug '25

Dear All, I am having problem install ISOLDE on a new MacBook. My ChimeraX version is 1.10rc202505310246 (2025-05-31). When installing from Toolshed, it says: ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement ChimeraX-Core~=1.10.0 (from chimerax-isolde) (from versions: none) ERROR: No matching distribution found for ChimeraX-Core~=1.10.0 Best regards, Tongqing Tongqing Zhou, Ph.D. Principal Investigator and Chief Structural Virology and Vaccinology Section Structural Biology and Structural Bioinformatics Cores Vaccine Research Center (VRC), NIAID National Institutes of Health Building T40, Room 117 (Office) Building 40, Room 4609B (Lab, shipping) 40 Convent Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892 Office: (301) 761-7068 Cell: (240) 695-0536 https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/tongqing-zhou-phd tzhou(a)nih.gov<mailto:tzhou@nih.gov>

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Displaying maps with threshold defined by mapstats
by Grundmann,Lorenz Emanuel 27 Aug '25

27 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX-Team and all, I want to visualize multiple cryoEM maps in a comparative manner. Therefore, I would like to display them with a threshold level of e.g. 90% their maximum voxel value. Is this possible in chimerax? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Best, Lorenz

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aborting slow hbonds command
by Daniel Larsson 25 Aug '25

25 Aug '25

Is it possible to prematurely stop a command issued on the command line that takes too long time? I often have sessions with many (more than 20) large ribosome structures open at the same time. I sometimes mistype the restrict atom-spec2 argument for the hbonds command and ChimeraX goes through each of the structures one by one twice, which can take very long time. I wish there were a flag to the hbonds command to only consider the models in atom-spec1, so that those typos does not spawn a search across all models. In addition, it would be great if the code for the hbonds command could be optimized. Why iterate over all models if only atoms in one model are in atom-spec1? Regards, Daniel När du har kontakt med oss på Uppsala universitet med e-post så innebär det att vi behandlar dina personuppgifter. För att läsa mer om hur vi gör det kan du läsa här: http://www.uu.se/om-uu/dataskydd-personuppgifter/ E-mailing Uppsala University means that we will process your personal data. For more information on how this is performed, please read here: http://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/data-protection-policy

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ISOLDE released for ChimeraX 1.10
by Tristan Croll 22 Aug '25

22 Aug '25

Hi all, Just a note for ISOLDE users: ISOLDE 1.10 is now out on the TooShed, ready for use with ChimeraX 1.10.x. Please enjoy! Best, Tristan -- Altos Labs UK Limited | England | Company reg 13484917 Registered address: 3rd Floor 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, United Kingdom, WA14 2DT

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Model-Map coloring using the ChimeraX
by Andrew Mugo 21 Aug '25

21 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX user support team, I am having a problem of coloring map based on the model color. I uninstalled and re-installed ChimeraX 1.9/1.10 but when I try to color the map, the software gives electrostatic color like. Please let me know how I can solve this problem. Best regards, Andrew

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Residue Interaction Network visualisation using chimerax
by Gagandeep Singh 20 Aug '25

20 Aug '25

Dear team , I have generated residue interaction network (RIN) data using RING 4.0 and would like to visualize this . I am familiar with UCSF Chimera, which supports visualization of RIN data, and I was wondering if ChimeraX also offers similar functionality. Kind regards -- *गगनदीप सिंह **/ Gagandeep Singh* *डॉक्टरेट का विद्यार्थी **/ Doctoral student* *ब्रिक - ट्रासलेशनल स्वास्थ्य विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान* *BRIC- Translational Health Science and Technology Institute* *(भारत सरकार के जैव-प्रौद्योगिकी विभाग का एक स्वायत्त संस्थान)* *(An autonomous institute of the Dept of Biotechnology, Govt Of India)* *NCR Biotech Science Cluster,* *3rd Milestone, Faridabad–Gurugram Expressway,* *PO box #04, Faridabad- 121001 (Haryana)*

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Question about the software features
by Mazrouee, Sepideh (NIH/OD) [E] 19 Aug '25

19 Aug '25

Hi, I had the chance to use ChimeraX recently for aligning some predicted protein 3D structures and it looks wonderful. However, I need to do some labeling of the visualization (including labeling of specific protein domains) and I wasn't sure if such feature exists in the software or there might be a way to make it happen. I would highly appreciate your help if you could provide me with some online resources to educate myself or join a call with some team members to help us out. Best regards, Sepid Sepideh Mazrouee, PhD Researcher, Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) Office of Director, National Institute of Health (NIH<https://www.nih.gov/>)

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Select atoms/chains by _atom_site.label_asym_id instead of _atom_site.auth_asym_id?
by Ute Roehrig 19 Aug '25

19 Aug '25

Hello, Is there a way to select atoms/chains from a mmcif file by their _atom_site.label_asym_id value instead of the _atom_site.auth_asym_id value? Thank you for your help, Ute

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Question Regarding Contacts Command in ChimeraX
by Andrew Guo 19 Aug '25

19 Aug '25

Hello, My name is Andrew Guo, an undergraduate at the University of Maryland College Park, doing research under Dr. John Orban with help from Dr. Andy LiWang from the University of California Merced, in the field of protein fold switching. Dr. LiWang recently used ChimeraX to calculate vdW contacts closer than 3.8 A between carbons in the context of a fold switching region in a small list of 26 "metamorphic" proteins (see here <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422725122>). I am now working on automating the whole process of calculating these contacts. In doing so, I have encountered a strange inconsistency that I do not know how to fix, and was hoping to gain some insight from the people who have developed ChimeraX. Previously, the overall contacts count was calculated by first calculating interdomain contacts then intradomain contacts and summing the two. It would be much simpler to calculate the contacts in one "whole" command instead of restricting the command to just interdomain or intradomain contacts. However, I have found that this "whole" command sometimes includes ligand contacts. For instance, for the pdb code 4O01A and region of interest residues 446-478, I have the following set of commands: interdomain: contacts /A:446-478@C* restrict /A:1-445,479-506@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output 13 intradomain: contacts /A:446-478@C* restrict /A:446-478@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output 8 "whole": contacts /A:446-478@C* restrict /A@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output 22 Obviously, 13 and 8 do not sum to 22. Ligand command: contacts /A:446-478@C* restrict ligand distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW This ligand command had an output of 1 and was the following: /A LEU 463 CD1 /A LBV 600 CMA (alt loc A) This contact was also the extra contact found in my "whole" command output, so I could just run the two commands (whole and ligand) and subtract the output of the ligand command from the output of the whole command. However, for the pdb code 3KMZA and region of interest residues 393-421, I have the following: interdomain: contacts /A:393-421@C* restrict /A:1-392@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output 0 intradomain: contacts /A:393-421@C* restrict /A:393-421@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output: 1 distances atom1 atom2 distance /A MET 400 CG /A GLU 401 C 3.788 "whole": contacts /A:393-421@C* restrict /A@C* distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output: 1 distances atom1 atom2 distance /A MET 400 CG /A GLU 401 C 3.788 ligand: contacts /A:393-421@C* restrict ligand distance 3.8 reveal true name vdW output 6 1-6 = -5 contacts Using my method, I get -5. Clearly, this is bad. The ligand command gave these 6 contacts: 6 distances atom1 atom2 distance /A THR 397 CG2 /A GOL 3 O3 3.321 /A ARG 394 CD /A GOL 3 O2 3.411 /A ILE 396 CA /A GOL 3 O3 3.436 /A ILE 396 CG2 /A GOL 3 O2 3.667 /A ILE 396 C /A GOL 3 O3 3.703 /A ILE 396 CB /A GOL 3 O3 3.721 However, these contacts were not part of the output of the whole command, unlike in the case of 4O01A. Is there something I am doing wrong with how I am setting up my commands? Please let me know if further information is needed! Thank you, Andrew

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Log Setting
by NUR AIDA SAKINAH 18 Aug '25

18 Aug '25

Hi ChimeraX teams, I am using ChimeraX version 1.9 in dark theme, when open the saved session, the log shown in highlighted grey colour if i’m not mistaken. So, is there a setting to make it easier to view the log for the saved session? Thank you. Regards, Aida

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B-factor and error in distance measurements
by Charles Midgett 18 Aug '25

18 Aug '25

I have two structures of a protein solved to different resolutions, one pretty good and the second not so good, and I want to compare distances between congruent atoms in the structures. It occurred to me that I have no idea if the differences in the distances are within the positional error of the atoms or not. Therefore, is there a way to propagate the positional uncertainty in the B-factors into a linear distance uncertainty? Sincerely, Charles

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Multiple sequence alignment display
by Betancurt, Leonardo 18 Aug '25

18 Aug '25

Hello, I would like to display a multiple sequence alignment based on structure after match maker. I use the command ”mm #!1-4 to #5 showAlignment true” but ChimeraX shows multiple pairwise alignments, is there a way to create a multiple sequence alignment? Thank you, Leo Betancurt, Ph.D. Post Doctoral Researcher | Zatopek Lab<https://www.neb.com/en-us/research-labs/zatopek-lab?srsltid=AfmBOoqPDIvrCfa…> New England Biolabs Inc. 📞 (978) 380-7290 📱 (351) 350-4075 [signature_474729057]<http://www.neb.com/>

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Re: ChimeraX support: Alphafold contacts
by Elaine Meng 14 Aug '25

14 Aug '25

Hi Tony! There are lots of options in menu: Select... Contacts, so it rather depends on all of the specific settings that you chose. Here is the help for that GUI: <https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/selectcontacts.html> To summarize in regard to your questions... If you are in the Chains tab, you have a choice to use atomic distance or buried surface area. If you chose atomic distance it is using all the atoms and doesn't care what is backbone or sidechain. It would be the minimum distance (closest pair). At any point you can just simply list the residues in the current selection, e.g. command info residues sel ... which will go to the Log but you could alternatively save to file, e.g. info residue sel saveFile ~/Desktop/contacts.txt If you are in the Atomic tab, then you have the choice to use VDW overlap (negative distance between VDW surfaces) or center-center distance as the main criterion. If using that tab, presumably you would have already selected one of the chains and then designate to limit the results to atom pairs where one of the atoms is selected. You don't have to go through GUIs. If you just want to list residues in one chain with any atom within some distance of any atom in another chain, you could use commands like the following to select protein residues in chain A within 5.0 Angstroms of protein residues in chain C. The "protein" intersections are because some structures have water, ligand, ions with the same chain IDs as the protein chains, but I wanted to only consider the protein. select (/A & protein) & (/C & protein) :<5.0 info residues sel If the chains were only protein anyway, or you wanted to include any nonprotein residues, could be simpler select /A & /C :<5.0 See command-line zone specification and combinations such as intersection (&): <https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/atomspec.html#zones> Again it is all atoms and the closest pair. 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 > On Aug 10, 2025, at 5:39 PM, Anthony Newcombe <anthony.newcombe(a)appliedbiopharm.com> wrote: > > Hello Elaine > > I have a commercial license of ChimeraX. Further to the email below, I have been using the menu and GUIs to select > contacts as described in your online message below > > https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list/chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu… > > This highlights the residues, and returns ' 267 atoms, 264 bonds, 32 residues, 1 model selected' between chains A and C > > But is there a simple command to list the identified residues as an output that are within less than 5 Angstroms and may interact for chain A or chain C, ie > > LEU264 > SER265 > ALA266 > > Also one question regarding the atomic distance used, is this a max distance between side chains, or the distance between the peptide backbones? > > Thanks for the help and apologies if these are simple questions > > Many thanks > > Tony

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Assistance: ChimeraX morph
by Priyanka Abeyrathne 12 Aug '25

12 Aug '25

Hi, I have two cryo-EM models (PDBs) at neutral and acidic pH conditions, both containing 486 amino acids. I would like to compare them by calculating the RMSD per residue, and then generate a morphing animation between the two structures. I used the following commands in ChimeraX: 1. I aligned the two structures using MatchMaker: mm #1 to #2 showAlignment true 2. I clicked on one amino acid in the MatchMaker alignment results to highlight the aligned residues. 3. Then I used the command: select ~sel to select residues with an RMSD greater than 1 Å. 4. To visualize the atoms of the selected residues with high RMSD, I ran: display sel & protein 5. I then cleared the selection using: select clear 6. Finally, I attempted to generate a morphing animation using: morph #1,2 wrap true frames 60 However, this command did not work. Could you please help me troubleshoot this? Thank you. Kind regards, Priyanka

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Creating an AtomicStructure object (along with other atomic objects) from scratch using Python API
by nrajan53045＠utexas.edu 11 Aug '25

11 Aug '25

Hi there, I am new to ChimeraX and its python API. As I was looking through the documentation, I noticed there were some atomic data classes (AtomicStructure, Atom, Atoms, Residue). Say I have a PDB file with information about all the atoms in the model, am I able to simply create Atom objects from reading the PDB file and, consequently, add these Atom objects to an AtomicStructure object? The reason I want to do this is because I want to use the fitmap function while limiting any disk IO. So, opening the file in ChimeraX (even if using the no gui offscreen functionality) would not work. I thought of simply creating objects from scratch, but I am running into errors when instantiating them. Sorry if this is an obscure problem or if I was unclear. Thanks for your help! Best, Nikhil

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Not opening
by Davis, Jamaine 11 Aug '25

11 Aug '25

Hello, We are attempting to install ChimeraX 1.10.1 on a PC. We can install it, but it will not open. Can you provide assistance? Best, JSD

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Version of Boltz in updated ChimeraX
by Jacek Jagodzinski 11 Aug '25

11 Aug '25

Do I need to manually/separately update Boltz to ver2 from ver1 after updating to current ChimeraX 1.10.1 or is this handled while update is installed? Jacek

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Tailoring Boltz-2 ChimeraX Output for AlphaBridge server Circos Plot Submission
by Arun Gupta 09 Aug '25

09 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX Team, I am currently working on visualizing interface residues using Circos plots via the Alphabridge web server, and I’m exploring ways to tailor the Boltz-2 ChimeraX output folder to serve as a compatible input format for Alphabridge web server (https://alpha-bridge.eu/) similar to the AF-3 output zipped folder. AlphaBridge<https://alpha-bridge.eu/> Zip file containing the AlphaFold resultSubmit job alpha-bridge.eu Despite successfully generating Boltz-2 outputs in ChimeraX daily build, I’m facing challenges in aligning the output folder with what Alphabridge web server expects for Circos plot generation. Could you kindly advise on: * Whether there is a recommended way to export or reformat Boltz-2 ChimeraX outputs for Alphabridge webserver compatibility? * Any scripts or workflows that facilitate this integration? Any advice on post-output work flow steps would be immensely helpful, as I aim to produce publication-quality Circos plot visualizations of interface residue networks similar to those demonstrated by recent AlphaBridge pre-print publication (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.23.619601) Thank you very much for your support and for the fantastic tool you continue to develop for structural biology community. I look forward to your recommendations. Best regards, Arun Arun Gupta PhD, MRSC Sr. Post Doctoral Research Assistant Gillespie/McMichael Group Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Centre for Immuno-Oncology Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ Tel: + 44 (0)1865 2612913

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Re: Post-translational Modification in Boltz Prediction
by Tom Goddard 08 Aug '25

08 Aug '25

Hi Xicong, You need to run that boltz command from a terminal, not from the ChimeraX command-line. Since you are on Windows you could use Windows Command Prompt, or PowerShell. I use a cygwin bash shell. Any of those will work. You are directly running the Boltz executable instead of using ChimeraX to handle the modified residue. Tom > On Aug 8, 2025, at 1:54 PM, Xicong Wang <xicongwang(a)brandeis.edu> wrote: > > Hi Tom, > I tried to enter the command in the command line, but it says that it is unknown. Did I miss something? My YAML file with phosphothreonine and phosphotyrosine is p38alpha - 2p.yaml. > Best, > Xicong Wang > <image.png> > > On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 6:38 PM Tom Goddard <goddard(a)sonic.net <mailto:goddard@sonic.net>> wrote: >> Hi Xicong, >> >> As Elaine said ChimeraX does not currently have a user interface to modify residues in Boltz predictions. I have not had time to add that yet. But you can pretty easily add the modification to input file for Boltz that ChimeraX creates and run it from a terminal. >> >> Here is an example of how to predicted a protein with a phosphoserine, I used PDB 2PIL as an example. I ran Boltz in ChimeraX with a standard serine. Here is the input YAML file ChimeraX produced ~/Desktop/2pil/2pil.yaml >> >> version: 1 >> sequences: >> - protein: >> id: [A] >> sequence: FTLIELMIVIAIVGILAAVALPAYQDYTARAQVSEAILLAEGQKSAVTEYYLNHGKWPENNTSAGVASPPSDIKGKYVKEVEVKNGVVTATMLSSGVNNEIKGKKLSLWARRENGSVKWFCGQPVTRTDDDTVADAKDGKEIDTKHLPSTCRDNFDAK >> >> I copied this 2pil.yaml file to 2pil_sep.yaml and added a few lines to say make serine 68 a phosphoserine (3-letter code SEP): >> >> version: 1 >> sequences: >> - protein: >> id: [A] >> sequence: FTLIELMIVIAIVGILAAVALPAYQDYTARAQVSEAILLAEGQKSAVTEYYLNHGKWPENNTSAGVASPPSDIKGKYVKEVEVKNGVVTATMLSSGVNNEIKGKKLSLWARRENGSVKWFCGQPVTRTDDDTVADAKDGKEIDTKHLPSTCRDNFDAK >> modifications: >> - position: 68 >> ccd: SEP >> >> Then I reran the boltz command that ChimeraX used from a terminal changing the 2pil.yaml input file to 2pil_sep.yaml. The command ChimeraX used is in the ~/Desktop/2pil/command file >> >> $ /Users/goddard/boltz/bin/boltz predict /Users/goddard/Desktop/boltz/boltz_2pil/2pil_sep.yaml --write_full_pae --use_msa_server --accelerator gpu --no_potentials >> >> When that ran it put the resulting predictions in >> >> boltz_results_2pil_sep/predictions/2pil_sep/2pil_sep_model_0.cif >> >> so I open that prediction in ChimeraX and aligned it to my original PDB using ChimeraX command "matchmaker #3 to #1". Result is shown in the image below. The Boltz documentation page shows other ways you can modify the input .yaml file for instance to add templates or constraints between atoms >> >> https://github.com/jwohlwend/boltz/blob/main/docs/prediction.md [github.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/jwohlwend/boltz/blob/main/do…> >> >> In the future I hope to provide ChimeraX user interfaces to allow those possibilities. >> >> Tom >> >> PDB 2PIL in tan, Boltz prediction with serine 68 in blue, Boltz prediction with phosposerine 68 in pink. >> >> <boltz_mod.png> >> >>> On Aug 7, 2025, at 8:36 AM, Elaine Meng via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu>> wrote: >>> >>> Sorry no, the ChimeraX tool to run Boltz does not have a way to define post-translational modifications. This issue is mentioned in the Limitations section: >>> >>> <https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/tools/boltz.html#limitations [rbvi.ucsf.edu] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/tools/…>> >>> >>> Best 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 >>> >>>> On Aug 6, 2025, at 7:07 PM, Xicong Wang via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Dear ChimeraX developers, >>>> I'm trying to predict a structure with two phosphorylated residues using Boltz. Is there an option for me to do that in ChimeraX? I didn't find any options to let me do any post-translational modification on the protein sequence I entered. >>>> Best regards, >>>> Xicong Wang >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ChimeraX-users mailing list -- chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> >>> To unsubscribe send an email to chimerax-users-leave(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users-leave@cgl.ucsf.edu> >>> Archives: https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list/chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu/ [mail.cgl.ucsf.edu] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list…>

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Post-translational Modification in Boltz Prediction
by Xicong Wang 07 Aug '25

07 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX developers, I'm trying to predict a structure with two phosphorylated residues using Boltz. Is there an option for me to do that in ChimeraX? I didn't find any options to let me do any post-translational modification on the protein sequence I entered. Best regards, Xicong Wang

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How to measure and visualize the distance between two benzene rings in ChimeraX?
by Nan Zhang 06 Aug '25

06 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX Developers, I want to create a video using ChimeraX. I plan to use the Morph command to make the structure change. At the same time, I also want this conformational change to occur while the structure moves to another position. Can this be achieved in ChimeraX? Looking forward to your answer, thank you! Best regards, Nan Nan Zhang zhangnan(a)nankai.edu.cn

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Save a surface
by Zhou, Tongqing (NIH/VRC) [E] 06 Aug '25

06 Aug '25

Dear ChimeraX, Is there a way to save a surface created by the “surface” command in the PDB or cif format? Best regards, Tongqing Tongqing Zhou, Ph.D. Principal Investigator and Chief Structural Virology and Vaccinology Section Structural Biology and Structural Bioinformatics Cores Vaccine Research Center (VRC), NIAID National Institutes of Health Building T40, Room 117 (Office) Building 40, Room 4609B (Lab, shipping) Office: (301) 761-7068 Cell: (240) 695-0536 https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/tongqing-zhou-phd tzhou(a)nih.gov<mailto:tzhou@nih.gov>

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feature request: add bring option to the align command
by Alexis Rohou 05 Aug '25

05 Aug '25

Hello, I really love (and depend on) the "bring" option to the "matchmaker" command. Occasionally though, I have to fall back on "align" when I need to specify atoms that should be superposed. Would you please consider adding a "bring" option to the "align" command? Cheers, Alexis

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ChimeraX displaying hydrophobicity
by Roy Chowdhury, Shatabdi 04 Aug '25

04 Aug '25

Hi, I'm trying to display the hydrophobic parts of a molecule, and I'm trying this command "mlp #1 map true key true palette lipophilicity range -5,5 transparency 100" When I use various values for the lipophilicity range, it does not affect the colors of the potential. They also do not have the gradients like the molecule display -> hydrophobic tab. Is there a way to make this happen? Thanks, Shatabdi Roy-Chowdhury, PhD. Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Cardiovascular Research Institute University of California, San Francisco

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Studying the structure at the positions of the mutations
by Richard melzack 04 Aug '25

04 Aug '25

Hello I have started using your excellent Chimera X 1.10.1 visualisation platform and have uploaded a protein and mutated protein onto the matchmaker screen. The RMSD is low so the general appearance is very similar. However, I was wondering (the mutated protein has a 6bp insertion and a nonsynonymous SNP) how to examine the details around the exact points of the mutations (both are on the same exon). I have tried a number of ideas. The command line doesn't like sequence or sequence #1 #2. I would be grateful for your assistance. Thank you Dr Richard Melzack

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saving submodels as separate pdbs
by Alexandra Zahradnikova 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Hi All, I have a trajectory (xtc) from which I can read selected frames into ChimeraX. I can then write all frames as one pdb with many submodels. But I am not able to find out how to open the frames as separate models, or save the trajectory as separate models. I will appreciate your help. Best Sasha Zahradnikova

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ViewDock Feedback and Feature Requests
by Andrii Kyrylchuk 29 Jul '25

29 Jul '25

Hi ChimeraX team! I would like to thank you for all the magnificent work you’re doing! My work would be much harder if Chimera and ChimeraX wouldn’t exist! After testing the new ViewDock (not ViewDockX), I have a few suggestions: 1. The rating system is still a bit inconvenient to use. A quick “OK/Bad” checkmark and fixed buttons to score the current ligand (as in classic Chimera) would speed up triaging. Dragging to each cell now slows review. 2. It would be great to have a possibility to rearrange columns. Now their order seems fixed. 3. It’s impossible to select and copy text in the lower part of the window. It would be very helpful in case I want to look into a specific ligand, e.g. copy its SMILES and visualize the 2D structure. 4. The window width follows the longest data field, leaving wide blank areas (see the screenshot). Could you allow arbitrary window sizes? Thanks for considering these ideas, and for all your ongoing work on ChimeraX. Sincerely, Andrii 

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How to replace ss_id for a secondary structure region?
by Rayees Mattoo 25 Jul '25

25 Jul '25

Hi, I have a region in my structure (res 208-229) which is displayed as a discontinuous helix when I am certain it is a continuous helix. I want to modify the pdb file to consider it as a continuous helix using chimeraX. I used the following commanlines: settatr #1/K:208-229 res ss_type 1 setattr #1/K:208-229 res ss_id 999 It works. However, I believe the command assigns the same region with a new unique ss_id (999), leaving the original ss_id intact. If I want to replace the the original ss_id with a new sequence range (res 208-229) how would I do that? Also, is there a way to directly text edit pdb file secondary structure list in ChimeraX? Best Rayees

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ChimeraX color fromcartoon error
by Prafful Sharma 25 Jul '25

25 Jul '25

* Dear ChimeraX Developer, I was recently trying to color a model in chimeraX based on a similar model with the same chain IDs and residues, and so I was using the command color fromcartoon #1 target #2 as specified in the documentation however I am receiving an error that says " Expected a color or one of 'byatom', 'bychain', 'byelement', 'byhetero', 'byidentity', 'bymodel', 'bynucleotide', 'bypolymer', 'fromatoms', 'fromcartoons', 'fromribbons', or 'random' or a keyword". I assume it is asking me to add a specific color name/code, but the other models have many different colors. I tried multiple turnarounds and even took help from different AI models, but still could not solve the error. I therefore think the functionality is not active, or there is some issue with I am not able to figure out. Can you please let me know if this functionality is working, or if there is any other way I can do this? Thank you for ChimeraX and your kind help! Prafful Sharma Ph.D candidate, TH lab | Structure, function, and regulation of protein synthesis Dept. of Developmental Biology and Genetics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012

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Obtaining a list of residues that are solvent-accessible
by Gracia Mazuca, Luis Antonio 24 Jul '25

24 Jul '25

Hello, I am currently employing ChimeraX to study features of a molecule. I am studying ribosomal RNA (rRNA) in the E. coli ribosome using the PDB model 4YBB. We are interested in seeing what residues from the 23S rRNA are solvent-accessible using a probe radius of 3Å. We are wondering if you could give us some advice on how to achieve this. We have tried a few methods we have found online, but they all yield different results. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much in advance. Best, [cid:25bde0d5-3803-4708-9790-94c965927e2c] Luis Antonio Gracia Mazuca Ph.D. Research Associate Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968 Office: CCSB G.0512A utep.edu<http://utep.edu/>

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issue with ChimeraX 1.10 in snapdragon windows 11
by Erramilli, Satchal 24 Jul '25

24 Jul '25

Hello, I am reaching out to ask if there are any compatibility issues with ChimeraX 1.10 in Snapdragon Windows 11. The earlier version, 1.9, worked, but 1.10 doesn't. Is this a known issue with the Snapdragon architecture? Thanks, Satchal Erramilli ============================================================ This electronic message transmission and any attachments are confidential and/or proprietary and may constitute legally privileged information of Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC. The information is intended for solely the use of "chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu" <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu>. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance of this information is strictly prohibited. You are not authorized to retain it in any form nor to re-transmit it, and you should destroy this email immediately. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (240-314-2600) or by electronic mail to the sender of this email, "Erramilli, Satchal" <SErramilli(a)meso-scale.com>, immediately. ===========================================================

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boltz latest version with ChimeraX1.10
by svle＠tiscali.it 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Hi, it is possible to install the latest version ( 2.1.1 ) of boltz in ChimeraX 1.10 with the command boltz install? Thanks. Saverio

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Correlation Question
by Amin, M.A.A. 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Hello, I'm trying to get the correlation between 2 maps. I used the command: measure correlation #2 in_map #1 I also saved the resampled map. Then, I wrote a very simple python code that calculates the correlation coefficient as following: def compute_correlation(map1, map2): threshold = np.percentile(map1.flatten(), 99) # top 1% value mask = (map1 >= threshold) #& (map2 != 0) values1 = map1[mask] values2 = map2[mask] corr = np.corrcoef(values1, values2)[0, 1] return corr Although it is considered masking as it is done in ChimeraX, I was never able to get the correlation value I got from ChimeraX. I got 0.1 from the python code and 0.68 in ChimeraX. Any suggestions? Thank you -- Muhamed Amin, Ph.D Assistant Professor of Physics University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

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show only extra density
by maria l 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Good Morning, I have a cryoEM map and a pdb, after fitting them i see an extra density i can´t explain with my model (pdb), is there an easy way, in chimera (old version), to show only that extra density? Thanks M

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Multiple alignment
by Marco Sette 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Dear all, I have few pdb structure and I would like to build a multiple alignment of the sequences based on structural alignment. While in Chimera it was an easy task I'm find some problems with ChimeraX since it returns a series of pairwise alignments (structure A vs. B, A vs. C, A vs. D) rather than a multiple one (A vs. B vs. C. vs. D). Is it possible to do? Thanks Best Marco -- Dr Marco Sette, PhD Department of Chemical Sciences and Technology The University of Rome, "Tor Vergata" via della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133, Rome, Italy e-mail: sette(a)uniroma2.it Tel.: +39-0672594424 Fax: +39-0672594328

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Re: Addendum to Terms and Conditions - UCSF
by Francois-Xavier Campbell-Valois 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Hello, I approve this agreement to use UCSF ChimeraX License. Best regards, François-Xavier Campbell-Valois, PhD Professeur agrégé | Associate Professor Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences D’Iorio Hall 10 Marie-Curie Private Ottawa ON K1N 6N5 CANADA Office: DRO 403 Lab: MRN 214C https://fxcampbellvalois.org<https://fxcampbellvalois.org/> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francois_Xavier_Campbell-Valois https://ca.linkedin.com/in/fxcampbellvaloishostpathogen -- De : mscontracting Med School Contracting via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> Date : mardi, 22 juillet 2025 à 16:17 À : chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> Objet : [chimerax-users] Addendum to Terms and Conditions - UCSF Attention : courriel externe | external email Hello, I work for the Regents of the University of Minnesota and its Medical School. I am requesting signature on our standard supplier addendum to your UCSF ChimeraX License Agreement, both attached here. Please follow the instructions below: 1. If you are in agreement with the language on the addendum DO NOT SIGN. 2. Reply to this email that you are in agreement then I will send the addendum for signature via Adobe-Sign. 3. If you will not be the signatory please supply their email address. 4. Finally, a fully executed addendum will be returned. Please reach out with any questions or concerns. Thank you, Mequila Stevenson University of Minnesota Medical School Contracting Team Office Hours Zoom Link<https://umn-private.zoom.us/j/98326567540> Contract Routing Form<https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/a4575a3938724cc68881868255b69dbb> Request Status Dashboard<https://app.smartsheet.com/dashboards/p7w62cJR57Qp3W9m56XhjX7w72xCcjr54hXvw…> (will need to request access)

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Intersurf and Surfnet in ChimeraX
by mlopez＠ibv.csic.es 23 Jul '25

23 Jul '25

Good afternoon, Does anyone know where are the Intersuf and the Surfnet options in ChimeraX?. Thanks a lot.

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Request: Complete ChimeraX User Manual in PDF Format
by 王雪 22 Jul '25

22 Jul '25

Dear UCSF RBVI Team, My name is Wang Xue, and I am a graduate student at South China Agricultural University. I have been learning to use UCSF ChimeraX to build the icosahedral capsid model of viral proteins. In the course of my studies, I discovered that the ChimeraX documentation and User Manual are provided as a collection of HTML files. While these are extremely helpful, I find that having a single, paginated PDF version would greatly facilitate offline review, bookmarking, and printing of the chapters I most frequently consult. Would it be possible for you to share the complete ChimeraX User Manual in PDF format? If such a version is already available, I would be grateful if you could direct me to its download link. Otherwise, I would very much appreciate your assistance in providing a consolidated PDF. Thank you for your help and for all the work you do in maintaining this valuable resource. I look forward to continuing to explore ChimeraX’s powerful features. Sincerely, Wang Xue South China Agricultural University July 20, 2025

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Issue with lighting and silhouettes
by Alessio Nocentini 20 Jul '25

20 Jul '25

Hello, I need your support again for another issue I am meeting in using ChimeraX. Unlike Chimera, I cannot find the lighting panel, which was very useful to adjust lights. Moreover, when I have a protein surface, the silhouettes are not complete in ChimeraX (black square in figure). I attach the same figure done with the 2 softwares. In chimera X I cannot increase the lighting in the active site. Can you help? Thank you Best regards Alessio [image: Chimera.png] [image: ChimeraX.png] -- Dr. Alessio Nocentini <https://cercachi.unifi.it/p-doc2-0-0-A-3f2b3c29372831.html> *Ricercatore Legge 240/10 a tempo determinato - Tipo B* *UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE* Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Psicologia, Area del Farmaco e Salute del Bambino (NEUROFARBA) *ECCELLENZA 2023-2027* Via Ugo Schiff 6, 50019 - Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy Phone: +39-055-4573685

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help
by mariela Urrutia 17 Jul '25

17 Jul '25

I want to unsubscribe .Thanks you.Mariela On Monday, July 14, 2025 at 04:00:15 PM GMT-3, chimerax-users-request(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <chimerax-users-request(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote: Send ChimeraX-users mailing list submissions to chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to chimerax-users-request(a)cgl.ucsf.edu You can reach the person managing the list at chimerax-users-owner(a)cgl.ucsf.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ChimeraX-users digest..." Today's Topics: 1. contacts (mariela Urrutia) 2. Re: contacts (Elaine Meng) 3. Re: Inquiry About Training for ChimeraX Plugin Development (Eric Pettersen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2025 13:08:40 +0000 (UTC) From: mariela Urrutia <urrugada(a)yahoo.com> Subject: [chimerax-users] contacts To: "chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu" <chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu> Message-ID: <1518652022.1318836.1752498520245(a)mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_1318835_1564174829.1752498520244" Hello, Could you tell me please how to get the contacts of a residue in a list and in the molecule representation?Thanks you in advance.Mariela

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ChimeraX Appreciation and Feature Suggestion (+ New #ChimeraX Tag on image.sc)
by José Jorge Ramírez Franco 16 Jul '25

16 Jul '25

Hi there, First of all, thank you for this outstanding piece of software. ChimeraX is truly invaluable and has become an essential tool in my workflow. As a microscopist working primarily with light microscopy (particularly confocal and light-sheet imaging) I’ve found ChimeraX’s rendering capabilities to be far superior to most tools currently available. I’ve even recommended its use several times on the image.sc forum <https://image.sc>, especially for rendering high-quality visualizations. In fact, I recently noticed that there was no #chimerax tag on the forum (surprisingly!) so I took the liberty of creating one. You can find the related post here: https://forum.image.sc/t/3d-multichannel-surface-rendering-from-z-stacks-na… While I have this opportunity, I’d like to *suggest a feature* that I believe would significantly enhance ChimeraX’s utility for large-scale light-sheet microscopy datasets: *support for .tiff files larger than 4 GB* . These large file sizes are quite common in light-sheet acquisitions, and the ability to open them natively in ChimeraX would be a substantial benefit to researchers in this field. Thank you once again for all the incredible work that goes into developing and maintaining ChimeraX. It’s deeply appreciated. Warm regards, J -- J. Jorge Ramírez-Franco PhD Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, SpiCCI Team Faculté de Médecine 27, boulevard Jean Moulin 13005 Marseille, France

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Directed camera mouvement along cartoon chain
by Enrico Desperados 16 Jul '25

16 Jul '25

Dear ChimeraX users! I would like to create an artistic movie for an X-ray structure making an impression that I am running on the protein cartoon like on the serpentine road. I have tried the following trivial algorithm: view :1 clip false; zoom 0.6; wait 30 view :2 clip false; zoom 0.6; wait 30 view :3 clip false; zoom 0.6; wait 30 view :4 clip false; zoom 0.6; wait 30 ... view :200 clip false; zoom 0.6; wait 30 However, It just moved the camera focusing on each residue, without giving the impression of movement along the protein chain. Do we have a special orient option that could introduce such smooth movements ? Many thanks in advance! Enrico

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eachChain option for fitmap?
by Oliver Clarke 15 Jul '25

15 Jul '25

Hi, Fitmap has on option to fit each model sequentially (eachModel). Would it be possible in a future version to add an "eachChain" option to fit each polymer chain in a mult-chain model independently? This would be useful when quickly fitting oligomeric models to an EM map. Alternatively, is there another quick way to do this? I thought about using perframe, but that only take numerical ranges, not alphabetical Cheers Oli

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Inquiry About Training for ChimeraX Plugin Development
by Rafat Hasan Khan 14 Jul '25

14 Jul '25

Dear ChimeraX Team, I am part of a research group working with Dr. Amitava Roy (University of Montana). We plan to develop a plugin, but when we initially started using your documentation with version 1.9 (2024-12-11), we failed to make it work despite following the guides on "Bundle Example: Add a Qt-based Tool." Could you please let us know if there are any training programs, workshops, or additional resources available for developers? Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time. -- Best Rafat

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contacts
by mariela Urrutia 14 Jul '25

14 Jul '25

Hello, Could you tell me please how to get the contacts of a residue in a list and in the molecule representation?Thanks you in advance.Mariela

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Map resolution range values
by Rayees Mattoo 10 Jul '25

10 Jul '25

Hi, How to extract Map resolution range values from a resmap.mrc file for the Table 1 validation (for publication) using chimeraX? Other suggestions, using different methods to extract the map res range values are also welcome. Best

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How to get just model name
by Alexandra Zahradnikova 09 Jul '25

09 Jul '25

Dear All I would like to extract just the model name (as a variable) from a model, to write into an output file with other data. However I am not able to find in the help how to do it - I can output all model information ("Model info") to the log but not to see just model name. Is that possible? Thanks in advance Best regards Sasha

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XYZ basis vectors
by Jan Hofmann 09 Jul '25

09 Jul '25

Hello, how can I show the XYZ basis vectors somewhere next to my structure in ChimeraX? I found the .bild datei but I don't want the arrows in my structure, rather outside, next to it, like in Crystalmaker. It would be really helpful to have the basis vectors to compare orientations with other images. Thanks a lot. Best, *Jan Hofmann, M.Sc.* *PhD Candidate, Department of Chemistry* *Chapman Group* Stony Brook University *jan.hofmann(a)stonybrook.edu <andrew.nicoll(a)stonybrook.edu>* Office: Room 577, Chemistry

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