[Chimera-users] Chimera-Viewer IDEA

[Eric Pettersen]

On Jan 20, 2012, at 6:00 AM, Alex Schneider wrote:

> Is there a standalone Chimera-Session-viewer or a way to create such  
> an viewer? It should be a small tool which can only display, zoom,  
> rotate a chimera-py-session-file with its bondstyle, background  
> color AND dockview conformers WITHOUT having the comprehensive  
> options of the full chimera package, f.e. (options just imaginary):
>
> chimera-viewer.exe peptidewithhbonds.py -fullscreen
> chimera-viewer.exe peptide_10conf_20picosec.py -startmovie
>
> The idea is to use the small tool just to view a chimera-session  
> without changing the style or without manipulating bonds or anything  
> else, JUST VIEW (o:. You could use that tool for presentations at a  
> conference.
>
> Normally I manipulate my molecules with chimera and export a vrml- 
> file for that task. BUT:
>
> I want to view my dynamic results as rotatable trajectory. I use the  
> dockview tool for that task.
>
> Ok, I know, I can just use the full chimera package to visualize my  
> results, but I just want to tell you my idea.

Hi Alex,
	We don't have plans for the "Chimera Lite" you describe, but we do  
have some plans that nonetheless may be of some help.  One thing we  
have right now (in the 1.6 daily build) is "WebGL" export [under  
File...Export], which modern browsers can show directly without any  
plug-ins (though many browsers currently need to have this cutting- 
edge capability explicitly "turned on" by the user, see:  
get.webgl.org).  This may be more convenient than showing VRML.  The  
generated HTML file, when shown in a browser, supports the normal  
"embedded trackball" Chimera mouse motions for rotating and scaling.   
We are actively working on improving the performance of exported  
WebGL, but it still can be slow for large systems.
	We also intend to leverage WebGL further and implement a subset of  
Chimera directly as HTML displayable in modern web browsers.  This  
will take some time to get going and even then display of trajectories  
is doubtful.  It's a lot closer to your Chimera Lite idea though.

--Eric

                         Eric Pettersen
                         UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
                         http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu

P.S.  Thanks for the compliments in the original mail!  I trimmed them  
off the above so that other people just got the "meat". :-)


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