<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Hi John,<div class="">Sorry, there is no option to create elliptical cylinders per se. However, there may be a devious approach to getting what you want, detailed below.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There are several ways to make standard (circular cross-section) cylinders and at least a couple ways to make 3D ellipsoids, as listed here with links:</div><div class=""><<a href="http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/print.html#objects" class="">http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/print.html#objects</a>></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For example, the “shape” command can make either of those.</div><div class=""><<a href="http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/shape.html" class="">http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/shape.html</a>></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The ideas I had are:</div><div class="">(A) find some other program to create the shape as a VRML file, then open it in Chimera</div><div class="">(B) try to fudge it by creating a 3D ellipsoid in Chimera and then using Per-Model Clipping to show only a slab slice of that ellipsoid</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I tried “B” and it actually looked better than I thought it would. However, it may take some messing around to get the look and size that you want, and then to position it appropriately relative to your membrane protein structure.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here’s what I did to generate what is shown in the attached image. Hard to tell from the image but it is indeed elliptical in cross-section.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">(1) command: shape ellipsoid radius 5,10,50 color light blue</div><div class="">(2) after rotating it around to admire it, reset to initial position, command: reset</div><div class="">(3) start Per-Model Clipping, menu: Tools… Depiction… Per-Model Clipping</div><div class="">(4) in that dialog, check that the Model is set to the ellipsoid, check “Enable clipping” and “Use slab mode” (changed thickness to 5), clicked “Orient plane” perpendicular to line of sight</div><div class="">(5) then rotate with mouse to admire the clipped shape</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Of course you would use different dimensions and color as desired, and then open your molecule and use the Active checkboxes to freeze one or the other to position them relative to one another.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Elaine</div><div class=""><div class="">-----<br class="">Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.<br class="">UCSF Chimera(X) team<br class="">Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry<br class="">University of California, San Francisco<br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Nov 14, 2019, at 7:29 AM, John Hackett <<a href="mailto:John.Hackett@vcuhealth.org" class="">John.Hackett@vcuhealth.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class="">Good morning, is to possible to draw capped elliptical cylinders in Chimera? I would like to render elliptical cylinder representations of nanodiscs together with a membrane protein to visualize results from small-angle scattering experiments. Thanks, -jch<br class=""></blockquote><img apple-inline="yes" id="2DA54093-4968-4557-825A-6A62958114C2" src="cid:892B36B9-60A9-4E46-84E0-16890302EAA7" class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>