[Chimera-users] Technical problem!

[Elaine Meng]

Dear Narges Mortezaei,
As you saw, the "mcopy" and "copy/combine" functions are only for molecule models, meaning those with atomic coordinates.  Another command "sym" can create symmetry-related copies of molecule models.

There is no analogous way of copying other types of models.  I believe you would just have to create more cylinders the same way you created the existing ones.  You didn't say how they were created, but some possibilities in Chimera are using BILD format or the "shape cylinder" command.
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/filetypes.html#object>
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/shape.html#cylinder>

It could probably be done with Python, but that is beyond my skill set, and would require more information such as whether you are trying to use symmetry information.
Best,
Elaine
----------
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. 
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab (Chimera team) and Babbitt Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco

On Apr 15, 2013, at 5:19 AM, Narges Mortezaei wrote:

> Dear Sir/Madam
> 
> We have confronted with kind of problem using chimera. We have constructed an structure of P-pili containing subunits and epitopes. A few cylinders that are representing arms of antibody have also been added to the model. The problem comes when we want to copy the cylinders to make more out of them. I do select corresponding cylinder, but when it comes to copy in Model Panel a copy option is not activated. I also tried “mcopy” command, but it did not work as well. Would you please give me some hints how to copy these kind of objects.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Narges Mortezaei