[Chimera-users] Making an omnimax POVray movie

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Kristina,
Wow, this movie sounds great!!

Our main POV-Ray expert is not in today, but I can address one part  
of your question.  It looks like postprocessing the *.pov files to  
specify "omnimax" is the way to go.  Maybe it could be combined with  
the x3d2pov step somehow.

Firstly, although you can change the viewing angle ("horizontal field  
of view," see Tools... Viewing Controls... Camera) in Chimera, I do  
not know if this setting is carried forward into *.x3d and *.pov output.

Secondly, the POV-Ray documentation
http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/247/
says that "omnimax" uses different amounts of fisheye distortion in  
the vertical and horizontal directions, which I don't think can be  
achieved in Chimera.  I think adjusting the viewing angle in Chimera  
corresponds to changing the angle in perspective projection in POV-Ray.

I would suggest validating your scripts with a smaller image size and  
without raytracing, but it sounds like you have already done that or  
something similar.

If anybody else has thoughts or suggestions, please pipe up!
Best,
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 Feb 26, 2008, at 8:41 AM, Kristina Furse wrote:

> Hi-
>
> We're interested in using Chimera to prepare POVray files for a  
> movie to be
> shown on a hemispherical dome. The first part of the movie will be  
> a 360 degree
> rotation of a DNA/drug complex showing water occupancy around the  
> drug, and the
> second half will come from an AMBER MD trajectory. We've figured  
> out the
> content and rendering. The two remaining issues are that the camera  
> must be
> changed from "perspective" to "omnimax" (fisheye), and the  
> extensive rendering
> time that will be required for the large system at very high  
> resolution
> (4096x4096). Here is our plan:
>
> 1. Use a command-line script to rotate the system and export the  
> scene to x3d
> files.
> 2. Use per-frame scripting in MD movie to export each trajectory  
> frame to x3d
> files.
> 3. Use x3d2pov to translate into *.pov files.
> 4. Change the camera from perspective to omnimax in each .pov file.
> 5. Render the individual images in parallel on our cluster using  
> povray
> (different version than the one that ships with Chimera).
> 6. Compress to jpeg.
> 7. Assemble movie as .mov (format compatible with projection system  
> in the
> dome).
>
> Does anyone have a better idea? I'm assuming that I can't change  
> the camera to
> omnimax from within Chimera?
>
> Thanks for any suggestions!
> Kristina
>
> --
> Kristina Furse
> Postdoctoral Research Associate
> 262 Stepan Chemistry Hall
> Notre Dame, IN 46556
> (574)631-3904
>