Hi Gabor, Currently there is no option of “cartoon” to smooth the coils, so this would have to go on the request list. There is a “smooth” option, but it applies only to peptide beta-strands:
http://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/cartoon.html
Sorry about that, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
P.S. while it does not address your question, you may be interested that we added a preset with tube helices (Presets… Cylinders/Stubs)
On May 10, 2019, at 8:23 AM, Gabor PAPAI papai@igbmc.fr wrote:
Dear developers, I would like to show helices as tubes (this I know how to do) and coils between them with smooth trajectories, more schematic, as it is drawn in Chimera using Pipes and Planks (or even more). I would appreciate your help! Best regards, Gabor