[Chimera-users] Fish-eye view

[Thomas Goddard]

Hi Gabe,

  Fish-eye would be handy for presentation images.  I submitted a request
for this in 2003 to the Chimera bug/feature tracking system.  Unfortunately
it has not seen the light of day since.  But I make fish-eye images once
in while.  I've attached one I just made for you as a test looking
inside reovirus (1ej6).  The trick is to bring up the Chimera Python shell,
menu entry

	Tools / General Controls / IDLE

and type a few things:

>>> c = chimera.viewer.camera
>>> c.viewDistance
30.0
>>> c.screenWidth
13.0
>>> c.viewDistance = 2
>>>

The parameters that control the field of view are "viewDistance" (default 30)
and "screenWidth" (default 13).  I think view distance means how far your
face is from your screen and screen width is how wide the Chimera window
is -- maybe the defaults refer to centimeters.  The defaults (narrow screen
and far view) give a field of view of 25 degrees.  Setting viewDistance = 2
gives a field of 150 degrees.

	Tom

> To: Thomas Goddard <goddard at cgl.ucsf.edu>
> From: Gabriel Lander <glander at scripps.edu>
> Subject: odd request
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 13:03:11 -0700
> 
> Hi Thom,
> The P22 paper I presented at the biophysics conference in Salt Lake 
> City will be published on June 23rd in Science, so when that happens 
> I'll send the movie I made with Chimera your way.
> We actually got the cover of the issue, and I worked with a graphics 
> artist here at scripps to put it together using his fancy graphics 
> software.  One thing that really made the structure very visually 
> striking was the implementation of a fisheye lens.  Although this 
> feature is not scientifically very useful, it would be a great artistic 
> addition to Chimera.  I have no idea how difficult this would ever be 
> to implement or if it'd be worth it, but it's just a thought.  I know 
> you get like a million suggestions a day, so obviously this would go 
> somewhere in the utmost bottom list of things to do.
> I've attached the mockup we made for the cover to give you an idea of 
> what I'm talking about.
> Cheers,
> -gabe
> 
>  *** removed image ***
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