> So, for the wish list, I would ask for a feature that when > ray tracing, automatically hides things that are not in the > picture being ray traced. >
This is supposed to happen implicitly when shadows are off, but apparently it is not working as well as one might hope. Have you tried changing hash_max? Dependending on the type of content displayed, on the size of the image, on how much memory you have, and on the number of CPUs in your system, optimizing this value can result in as much as a 3X speed up. Try values in the range 100-300, but be sure to save your session first since running out of RAM can cause PyMOL to crash. If you are going to generate a lot of very similar images (such as an animation), then it is usually worth running a script like the one below while you're away from the computer. Look at the output in order to determine what works best for you. Often the best times are in the 150-200 range, but not always. If you're constrained on RAM, then you might need to start the sequence with a number below 300. set hash_max, 300 ray set hash_max, 275 ray set hash_max, 250 ray set hash_max, 225 ray set hash_max, 200 ray set hash_max, 190 ray set hash_max, 180 ray set hash_max, 170 ray set hash_max, 160 ray set hash_max, 150 ray set hash_max, 100 ray Cheers, Warren -- Warren L. DeLano, Ph.D. Principal Scientist . DeLano Scientific LLC . 400 Oyster Point Blvd., Suite 213 . South San Francisco, CA 94080 . Biz:(650)-872-0942 Tech:(650)-872-0834 . Fax:(650)-872-0273 Cell:(650)-346-1154 . mailto:war...@delsci.com > Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 5:54 PM > To: Warren DeLano > Subject: Re: [PyMOL] Perspective Rendering (at last!) > > Hi Warren, > > I am doing a lot of perspective rendering, I love it, and I > have not encountered any problems, such as instabilities. > > However, it is slower. > > Because I am at the stage of producing publication figures, I > am doing everything with antialias on, perspective on, and at > high resolution. The trickiest images also involve high > resolution electron density. Rendering can take a long time. > > However, I can dramatically reduce the rendering time by > hiding/not drawing things/maps that are not in the actual > picture. (I have turned off shadows). This doesn't change > the resulting picture. In other word, it seems that things > out of the field of view or not between the clipping planes > dramatically slow down the rendering time (even with no shadows). > > So, for the wish list, I would ask for a feature that when > ray tracing, automatically hides things that are not in the > picture being ray traced. >
