[Chimera-users] hardware stereo switching between distal and proximal when rotating

[Greg Couch]

My guess is that the problem you are having is that the focal plane, 
basically where the molecule intersects the screen, is too far back, so 
when parts of the molecule are far out of the screen, your eyes are 
having problems converging, and you're getting an inversion.  To test 
this hypothesis, bring up the SideView tool, and switch to the "top" 
side view from the "right" side view.  You will then see a dashed line 
that represents the focal plane.  Drag the focal plane all the way to 
the near plane (the solid vertical line closest to the eye), and then 
try your rotating experiment again.  And please let me know if that is 
really the problem you're having.

Automatically managing the focal plane in stereo is something chimera 
needs to do, and there is experimental support for that if you run the 
following Python code (either in the IDLE window, or place it in a .py 
file and open the python file within chimera):

     chimera.viewer.camera.autoFocus = True

But not all parts of chimera respect that setting, so it is still 
possible for the focal plane to get out of whack and you'll need to 
adjust it by hand.

     HTH,

     Greg

On 08/29/2011 10:50 AM, frederick lee wrote:
> dear chimera community,
> i have experienced this issue for some time now. i don't think
> this is happening with other software like pymol, dsvisualizer,
> MOE, etc given the same computer and hardware setup.
>
> somehow when viewing in hardware stereo mode (sequential
> stereo), the model will switch back and forth between proximal
> and distal views during rotations. is there a particular chimera setting
> that will prevent such from happening. thanks much.
> fred