- ChimeraX-users - RBVI Mailing Lists

ChimeraX install problems
by Alexander Hung Lee 28 Jun '24

28 Jun '24

I tried to install ChimeraX daily build on a fresh install of Ubuntu 24. When I launch the program, the log says "Available bundle cache has not been initialized yet." Another oddity I"ve noted is that tying to run a python script w/ "chimerax --nogui --silent --offscreen --script path/to/script" works but "chimerax --script path/to/script" doesn't. I just get a black screen. There also isn't a stable build for Ubuntu 24, only daily builds. Should I downgrade my OS? Alex

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induce mutations in protein structure
by Mamadou Sangare 27 Jun '24

27 Jun '24

Dear, I'm new in chimera and I wouldlike to know how to induce mutations in protein structure, in other words, how to replace one residue by another in the protein structure. Kind regards! Mamadou SANGARE, PhD student ACE-B,Mali

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Feature suggestions for the Segmentations tool
by Ricardo Righetto 27 Jun '24

27 Jun '24

Hi, Thanks a lot for adding the Segmentations mode in v1.8, this is very much welcomed for cryo-ET data! Are there any plans for expanding the capabilities of this tool? If possible, I would like to suggest some features for manual segmentation: * Segment contiguous density in 3D by clicking on it (akin to the blob selector in the "Right Mouse" options, which operates on surfaces) * Related: threshold-based segmentation i.e. segment in 3D all contiguous density between selected minimum and maximum density thresholds * 2D/3D Lasso-based segmentation * Dilation, erosion and smoothening of segmentations Some of these things are already possible by combining volume and surface operations or with external tools, but it would be very nice to have everything streamlined in one click (or a few) through the GUI. Alternatively, I would appreciate pointers on how to implement these features as a ChimeraX plugin. Happy to discuss more. Thank you and have a nice weekend! -- Ricardo Diogo Righetto

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Re: ChimeraX does not Support .stl files?
by Zach Pearson 26 Jun '24

26 Jun '24

Hi Kevin, Please direct questions about ChimeraX to our mailing list, chimerax-users(a)cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> — others on the team or even in the community may have more experience or more recent experience in a given subject than I or any other developer has at the moment. Eric (CC’ed) has been working on the NIH 3D pipeline; part of that pipeline is adding struts to delicate objects for 3D printing. He may be able to help you better than I can. — Zach > On 26 Jun 2024, at 14:55, Maroney, Kevin James <kmaroney(a)uab.edu> wrote: > > Hello Dr. Pearson, > Despite doing more Immunology research and really no proteomics, I have had a hobby interest in fooling around with Pymol and ChimeraX. I just recently got a very nice 3D Printer and was hoping to print out a model of the epitope of my PhD complexed between HLA-B57 and TCR that is publically available. I was going to use UCSF Chimera, but it does not seem like it is capable of representing space-filling diagrams and only gives me errors. I obviously can’t print the complex and delicate ribbon or atomic representations and like ChimeraX better anyway. But the guide from the NIH suggests passing PDB models through Chimera to generate .stl files which I can easily then pop into my Studio software to 3D print and resize etc. Problem is, I don’t see that there is any way to actually export as .stl in ChimeraX. Is there any way you could add this feature? Thank you very much. Lovely program. > > Sincerely, > Kevin Maroney > M.S. Biotechnology > University of California, Irvine > PhD Student > University of Alabama at Birmingham

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transparency using in movie making
by Yanhe Zhao 26 Jun '24

26 Jun '24

Dear ChimeraX team, I have a map with model docking and am making movie. My plan is to fade away the map to show the docked model for next step. I tried the crossfade which works. But I want to use the transparency command for this purpose because I want to keep the map at specific transparency level, like 80%. The chimera has command like 'surftransparency 80 #1 50'. I was wondering what is the similar command in ChimeraX? Thanks and cheers, Yanhe

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Sequence based selections
by Kumpula, Esa-Pekka 26 Jun '24

26 Jun '24

Dear ChimeraX team, Two selection-related questions: 1. I'm looking for a way to combine multiple sequence based selections into one selection but I wasn't able to find a way to do this. The use case is, I have a lot of models that have these two proteins and I would like to use them together for superposition (via align command against Calphas). I would normally refer to them by chain ID, but here these are not consistently assigned so I need to use the sequence for selection. 1. Is it possible to have a named, sequence-based selection that, when called, would perform the selection? This would save a lot of pain when writing scripts for sequence based selections. Cheers, EP -- Esa-Pekka Kumpula, PhD Senior Postdoctoral Researcher Laboratory of Structural Biology Institute of Biotechnology Helsinki Institute of Life Science HiLIFE University of Helsinki www.helsinki.fi/lsb<http://www.helsinki.fi/lsb>

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Generic Linux installation package for ChimeraX 1.8
by Kumpula, Esa-Pekka 26 Jun '24

26 Jun '24

Dear ChimeraX team, I noticed that version 1.8 no longer comes with a "Generic Linux" installation package (unlike 1.7). I have been using this for a centralised installation on a network drive that has so far worked very well. Is this coming to 1.8 or is it discontinued? Cheers, Esa-Pekka -- Esa-Pekka Kumpula, PhD Senior Postdoctoral Researcher Laboratory of Structural Biology Institute of Biotechnology Helsinki Institute of Life Science HiLIFE University of Helsinki www.helsinki.fi/lsb<http://www.helsinki.fi/lsb>

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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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Troubleshooting MOLE Channel Visualizations
by Josh Gonzalez 24 Jun '24

24 Jun '24

Hello, I am a newer user of ChimeraX and am having some trouble creating visualizations to characterize a channel of interest. I began by following the procedure outlined in the tutorial "MOLE Channel Coloring by Property" but quickly ran into some issues with my own channel. This led me to try the click-to-execute links for the example in the tutorial and I ran into the same problem. It seems ChimeraX cannot accept .json files that are not Alphafold PAE maps, meaning there is no way to visualize the results of the MOLEsever analysis. I have attempted parsing data from the .json into a usable file format such as a .bild or a .pdb in a separate anaconda kernel, and while I am able to get coordinates for a superimposed visualization, they are not selectable atoms that can be color-coded or manipulated as they are in the procedures following the "open molepore-1bl8.json" command. I know this is because I have not found a way to parse all of the useful data from the .json file into another format, but I do not see exactly how I would go about doing so. Is there a way to get ChimeraX to accept a .json file that is not a PAE plot without the need for parsing data or changing format? Thank you so much for the help!

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Question
by Suwisanto, Natasha 24 Jun '24

24 Jun '24

Hello, My name is Natasha Suwisanto. I’ve been using UCSF Chimera X and AlphaFold servers for a personal research project to mutate a GPCR protein. I just had a quick question. I was mutating a structure using the Rotamer tool on ChimeraX. I mutated a single amino acid (Tyrosine) to a Proline using the Richardson Common Atom library. However, when I ran AlphaFold on it, the predicted 'best model' structure they gave me had a different amino acid (Leucine) on the position I previously mutated the Tyrosine to the Proline. I was just wondering if I did something wrong or if AlphaFold/ChimeraX works differently than I thought. Best, Natasha Suwisanto

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