[Chimera-users] clipping (interior surfaces and solids)

[Andrew Jewett]

    It would be useful to be able set separate surface properties
for the interior of opaque closed surfaces that have been made visible
by the clipping planes set in Per-Model-Clipping.  These are normally 
backface polygons.

   This could be complicated to implement in a general way.
In my opinion, that's probably not necessary.
The only feature that I really pine for is the ability to make
the interior surface darker/lighter than the exterior surface.
Perhaps a slider could be added to Per-Model-Clipping tool
that allows the user to make the backface polygons darker or 
lighter than the regular polygons.  (Perhaps the default
should be about 25% darker.  That would look pretty and I
hope it would be easy to add.)

   Another feature that would be useful is the ability to make the
closed surfaces look solid so that when you cut into them, instead
of seeing the interior, a polygon face is added to close the surface
and make it look like a solid object.  (For example, lighter-colored
surfaces in the cartoon:
   http://www.biochem.mpg.de/hartl/mhartl/index.html

   I realize these features should be low on the priority list.
Maybee a quicky feature to implement when you get board working
on the slow, difficult, useful stuff.
Cheers!

Andrew

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Andrew Jewett wrote:

> Hi.  Please forgive me for sending this message twice.  In the first 
> version, I forgot to include a subject line, so I'm sending it again.
> ---------------
> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Thomas Goddard wrote:
> > 	chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu
> 
> When using the Per-Model-Clipping tool and selecting which model
> to apply the clipping to, there should be an option "All Models",
> and it should be the default option.
> 
> Without this feature, some unintended results can happen.
> Suppose the user generates a surface either with MSMS or multiscale.
> If the user then uses the menu to select
> Tools->Graphics->Per-Model-Clipping 
> The default model is the one with the atoms and bonds, not
> the surface model.  When the user moves the clipping plane 
> it will seem like nothing is hapenning.
> 
> The user has to be quite attentive to realize that they have to
> select the surface model from the list.  It would be better to
> have an "all models" option that is the default.
> 
> Thanks
> Cheers!
> 
> Andrew