RFE: allow specifying image from file as background

[Elaine Meng]

allow specifying image (read from file) as the background of the graphics window

[Tom Goddard]

I don't have a clear idea of the value of this. It seems like it would only be useful for a presentation image, not for interactive use, and that can easily be done by saving with a transparent background and compositing with a background image in Photoshop or Gimp or any other photo editor. The complexity for us to implement this in ChimeraX doesn't seem justified by the very rare use it would get.

[jmsstarlight@…]

Hello and thank you very much for considering my request !

would it be possible to use a static png image in the background for
recording a movie from a multi-frame pdb file (in ucsf chimera it was
possible ;-D )

Many thanks in advance

Cheers

Enrico

Il giorno gio 22 feb 2024 alle ore 03:40 ChimeraX <
ChimeraX-bugs-admin@cgl.ucsf.edu> ha scritto:

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[Tom Goddard]

For a simple movie where the camera stays in the same place you could just open a photo in ChimeraX and scale it to a size you like

open ~/Desktop/myphoto.png format photo
surface transform #1 scale .15

and position your models in front and record a video.

Another option would be to record your movie image frames with transparent background (movie record transparent true) and then composite them with a background image in some movie making program. I don't know what movie encoding programs handle that.

[jmsstarlight@…]

Thanks for the tip!

How to zoom independently the molecule but not the image ?
E.g. I opened the both in two independent models and the image looks MUCH
bigger than the molecule.
If I try to use the zoom command or just use the mouse it operates with
both models at the same time ..

Il giorno ven 23 feb 2024 alle ore 05:02 ChimeraX <
ChimeraX-bugs-admin@cgl.ucsf.edu> ha scritto:

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[Tom Goddard]

Opening a photo to use as a background image in ChimeraX just makes a normal model. I explained how to resize it in the previous comment. There is not independent zoom. This will only be useful for a movie where you do not move the models (as I said in the previous comment) and do not move the camera, since that would change the position of the background image in the camera.

[jmsstarlight@…]

Okay I gotcha thank you !

Actually I found another small bug - the resize works fine OK
but if I save the session (with everything prepared for movie making) and
then close/reopen it, I need to resize the background image again using
surface transform #1 scale .15

Kind regards,

Enrico

Il giorno ven 23 feb 2024 alle ore 18:18 ChimeraX <
ChimeraX-bugs-admin@cgl.ucsf.edu> ha scritto:

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