Hi Shriya, The ChimeraX ribbon spline goes through the C-alpha atoms except it is smoothed for beta strands. See the cartoon command smooth option in the ChimeraX documentation. https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/cartoon.html A natural cubic spline is used. To see the ribbon with the C-alpha atoms open 8orx show @CA cartoon suppressBackboneDisplay false style @CA ball color @CA blue atoms Tom 
On Oct 17, 2024, at 8:53 AM, Shriya Sivakumar via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Shriya and I am an undergraduate research assistant at the Microsystems and Mechanobiology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. I was wondering if you could help me with regard to how ChimeraX creates splines when modeling alpha helices. In particular, which atoms from the protein backbone are used as the points through which the spline is calculated? Thank you!
Sincerely,
Shriya Sivakumar _______________________________________________ ChimeraX-users mailing list -- chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> To unsubscribe send an email to chimerax-users-leave@cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:chimerax-users-leave@cgl.ucsf.edu> Archives: https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list/chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu/
