[Chimera-users] conjoined unit cells

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Bartek,
Although the Unit Cell tool generates only a single unit cell, the  
Multiscale Models tool can generate a 3x3x3 block of unit cells.   It  
is under Tools... Higher-Order Structure.  Choose the Multimer option  
"3x3x3 crystal unit cells" and then click "Make models".

See the man page for more details on Multiscale Models:
http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/multiscale/ 
framemulti.html

A possibly tricky thing is that for computational expediency,  
Multiscale Models first generates only low-resolution surfaces for  
all the additional copies.  If you need atomic coordinates for some  
or all of those copies, select those copies in Multiscale Models and  
then choose a different Style of display.  All the styles other than  
Surface force loading of the atomic coordinates (Ribbon, Wire, Stick,  
Ball&Stick, Sphere).  Loading coordinates for the copies creates  
additional molecule models in Chimera.  Their coordinates can be  
saved to file(s) with File... Save PDB in the main Chimera menu.

I hope this helps,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                          meng at cgl.ucsf.edu
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab and Babbitt Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco
                      http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/meng/index.html


On Jun 19, 2007, at 7:22 AM, Bartosz Siemiński wrote:

> Hi all,
> I was working with Chimera for some time, beeing
> convinced  I don't need no help, until I'd got to
> this.
> Is there a possibility of conjoining several (let's
> say four, nine or sixteen) unit cells? I use the el.
> density map (converted to cpp4, so it could be loaded
> by Chimera) for structural alignment and such an
> operation would be very usefull.
> Thanks in advance,
> Bartek