[Chimera-users] size limits on bild geometric primitives?

[Kristina Furse]

Hi-

I like to use Chimera as a front end to povray to make high resolution images of molecules. I'm starting to work with other types of data, and was wondering if I could still use it. I have some network data--20,000 nodes with 32,000 connections. I translated the data into drawing instructions in bild format--spheres for the nodes and cylinders for the connections. Small test data sets work (300 nodes with 500 connections or 20,000 spheres with vectors instead of cylinders) but the full data set of spheres and cylinders crashes Chimera. 

Is there a limit somewhere I could raise or is this a hard wall for bild shapes? Would it be less memory intensive to create a "pdb" of the node locations and create the connections as bonds?

Thanks!
Kristina


Kristina Furse Davis, Ph.D.
Visualization Scientist
Center for Research Computing
University of Notre Dame
P.O. Box 539
Room 122 Information Technology Center
Notre Dame, IN 46556
kristina.davis at nd.edu