[Chimera-users] export stl file

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Yifan,
It is difficult to say when we don't know how the other programs (the other one used for saving and the one used for viewing) handle the object coordinates during saving and opening.  If you use Chimera for both saving and reopening the STL file, you can see that it opens in the position that you saved it.  So if you rotated the protein in Chimera (or maybe also in that other program) before saving the file, that could explain the different orientations when you view the file.

If you didn't do any rotations in either program used to save, however, but they still look different in the viewing program, it may be that the other program automatically applies some rotation when an object is opened, or (seems less likely) uses different directions of X,Y,Z relative to the viewpoint.

Another thing you can try to better understand what might be happening is to open both STL files for comparison in Chimera instead of with the CAD software, and see if you get the same appearance as in the CAD software.

Maybe Tom G can say more about this issue when he returns to work, but he is currently away for a few days.
Best,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       
UCSF Chimera(X) team
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco


> On Mar 6, 2023, at 2:27 PM, Yifan Wang via Chimera-users <chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Chimer team,
> 
> I have a question about exporting stl files. Because I load one pdb file in chimera and export as a stl file then I load in a CAD based software to compare with another stl file I generated through another software. So the input to generate the stl file are the same, but the results are different. 
> 
> The results show that two different stl files in the same 3D quadrant but it got rotated at different angles. What may cause this issue?
> 
> Thank you so much!
> 
> Yifan