[Chimera-users] movie command with headless Chimera

[Tom Goddard]

  Hi Masako,

   You want to create a movie by running Chimera in the background (no 
windows, no console).  You are trying the right approach, using 
"headless" Chimera.

   I'm afraid the movie command may not work with headless (ie 
background, no windows) Chimera. Headless Chimera can't create any 
dialog windows and it may be that the movie command internally relies on 
the Movie Recorder dialog.  I don't know for sure.  Your error is caused 
by the movie command trying to monitor changes in the Chimera graphics 
window (which does not exist).  I can fix that and see if there are 
subsequent errors.  I'll try this today or tomorrow.

   Image saving works with headless Chimera, but I have not tried 
background movie recording in the past -- obviously useful though.

     Tom

> Hi, Tom.  I hope you had a nice vacation :)
>
> I was able to run very simple command script with headless chimera, but I
> am getting these errors trying to save a simple spinning movie...
>
> reading final.mrc 2.2 Mb 0%
> Done reading final.mrc
> final.mrc opened
> reading final.mrc 18 Mb 0%
> Done reading final.mrc
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>    File "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/chimeraInit.py",
> line 422, in init
>      chimera.openModels.open(a, prefixableType=1)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/chimera/__init__.py",
> line 1510, in open
>      models = func(filename, *args, **kw)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/Midas/ChimeraExtension.py",
> line 32, in func
>      processCommandFile(cmdFile)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/Midas/midas_text.py",
> line 104, in processCommandFile
>      _processFile(f, emulateRead, filename)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/Midas/midas_text.py",
> line 135, in _processFile
>      if makeCommand(line):
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/Midas/midas_text.py",
> line 65, in makeCommand
>      f(c, args)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/MovieRecorder/ChimeraExtension.py",
> line 25, in doMovieCmd
>      doExtensionFunc(MovieRecorder.processMovieCmd, args)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/Midas/midas_text.py",
> line 426, in doExtensionFunc
>      extFunc(*tuple(processedArgs), **kw)
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/MovieRecorder/__init__.py",
> line 207, in processMovieCmd
>      director = getDirector()
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/MovieRecorder/__init__.py",
> line 342, in getDirector
>      director = Director.Director()
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/MovieRecorder/Director.py",
> line 69, in __init__
>      top = chimera.tkgui.app.winfo_toplevel()
> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'tkgui'
> Error while processing makeimage.cmd:
> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'tkgui'
>
>    File
> "/home/mterada/opt/UCSF/Chimera-headless/share/MovieRecorder/Director.py",
> line 69, in __init__
>      top = chimera.tkgui.app.winfo_toplevel()
>
> See reply log for Python traceback.
>
>
> This same command script saves spinning movie with no problem, so I am
> guessing it's headless chimera not having GUI...  Is there a way around
> it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Masako
>