[PyMOL] exporting surfaces

2004-10-19 Thread Peter Dudek
Dear Pymol users,

Does anyone know if there is a way to export surfaces into a file format 
suitable for import into 3D modellers (ie. Blender, 3DSMax, Lightwave, etc)? 
For that matter, is it possible at all to export anything in pymol?

I realize that asking for support of a particular 3D file format is a bit of a 
slippery slope - if one export format is supported, everyone will want 
support for their favourite format. This is why I embarked on a bit of a 
solitary crusade a few months ago - I wrote a small (and dubious) python 
script that converts MSMS calculated surfaces into the RAW file format, which 
*every* 3D modeller can import. Unfortunately, I could never figure out how 
to extrapolate or calculate the normals, so quite a bit of detail is lost in 
the conversion.

How are surfaces calculated and stored in pymol? If writing an export 
filter/extension is trivial, I'd be willing to do it with a bit of hand 
holding. 

Cheers,
Peter

-
Laboratory of Dr. Didier Picard
University of Geneva
Department of Cell Biology
Sciences III
30, Quai Ernest-Ansermet
1211 Geneva 4
Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 379 3254
Fax: +41 22 379 6442
Email: du...@cellbio.unige.ch
http://www.picard.ch/DP/DPhome.html



Re: [PyMOL] still abou surfaces

2004-10-19 Thread Michael George Lerner
Hi,

Did you get an answer to this already?  I've been swamped recently, so I
haven't answered many PyMOL/APBS questions.  Anyway ..

I don't know anything about MSMS data and plotting surfaces, but I know a
bit about PyMOL + APBS.  APBS calculations (like a lot of other
electrostatics calculations) require a PQR file.  This is just a PDB file
that also has information about the charge and radius of each atom.  There
are good sets of standard parameters for generating PQR files for standard
amino acids, so PyMOL can automatically generate PQR files most proteins.
However, it can't automatically generate PQR files for non-standard
protein residues.  It also can't generate PQR files for non-proteins.

From your question, I think you already know this, which brings me to the
little bit of help that I might be able to provide:

I don't know how you do your electrostatics calculataions, but if you
generate a PQR file somewhere along the way, you can tell the APBS plugin
to use that PQR file (and then you can use the APBS plugin to do your
electrostatics calculations and show the results with the APBS plugin,
etc.).

If you don't use PQR files, or if you don't want to use APBS to do your
electrostatics calculations, you can still probably convert your results
to a format that PyMOL understands.  The DX format is a particularly easy
one to read and write .. you can find some documentation here

http://agave.wustl.edu/apbs/doc/html/user-guide/x2539.html

and I can probably help you out with it if that's not enough.  If you can
convert things to a PyMOL readable format, you can use the APBS plugin to
show the electrostatic potential (or you can just use the built-in PyMOL
commands like isosurf, isomesh, etc.).

I get the feeling that I've said a lot, none of which will actually be
useful .. sorry about that if it's true!

thanks,

-michael

--
This isn't a democracy;|_  |Michael Lerner
 it's a cheer-ocracy.  | ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) |   Michigan
-Torrence,  Bring It On|  - against HTML email  X  |  Biophysics
   |   / \ | mler...@umich

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, Alan Wilter Sousa da Silva wrote:


 Hi List!

 I was wondering why PyMol does not do the same as VMD about importing data
 from MSMS and plotting surfaces. So, I would not have problems anylonger
 about making surface of drugs or ligands that are not based in residues.

 Moreover, I finally could use apbs plugin to draw electrostatic surface of
 some drugs that we have been studied here.

 How about it?

 Or is there another alternative?

 Thanks in advance for any commentary.

 Cheers,

 --
 --
 Alan Wilter Sousa da Silva
 --
 D.Sc. - IBCCF/UFRJ
 Projeto BioPAUA - HP/LNCC
 PetrĂ³polis (RJ), Brasil
 www.lncc.br/~alan


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