[Chimera-users] pause during a fly-by?

[Tom Goddard]

Hi Daniel,

  The demo capability in Chimera is designed to do what you want 
including rewind.

    
http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ContributedSoftware/demos/demos.html

It doesn't allow pausing in the middle of a motion -- only between 
panels (maybe between individual commands associated with a panel - not 
sure).  But the idea is that the duration of motion in each panel would 
be short.  We haven't made many demos and this tool may be pretty rough 
around the edges.

  The trouble with the pause command or Shift-Escape to pause/resume a 
script is that the fly command returns immediately after you invoke it.  
It sets up playing the motion which then happens after the command 
returns.  Normally that motion could be halted with the command 
"freeze".  This works with other motion commands "reset", "roll", 
"move", and it should work with "fly" but doesn't yet work for "fly".  
In any case, it simply terminates the motion and there is no way to 
restart it, so that won't do what you want.  There is no mechanism to 
pause the playback in these motion commands, though maybe "pause" and 
the Shift-Escape key should be made to do that.  Currently those 
mechanisms just block running of additional commands I believe.

  I wonder whether pause/resume would be adequate for teaching 
purposes.  Seems very likely to me that you will need rewind.  By the 
time a student asks a question the motion is already past the relevant 
section.  We don't have any rewind capability in the motion commands or 
in general scripts, only the demo tool, and even there I think can be 
tricky to make it work.

    Tom


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Chimera-users] pause during a fly-by?
From: Daniel Gurnon
To: chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu
Date: 8/21/09 5:52 PM
> Hi all,
> I've been considering ways to use Chimera in the classes I teach, and I love the potential of the "fly"command for smoothly navigating between preset positions. But is it possible to pause in mid-flight? The pause command hasn't worked for me here. What I'm really looking for is a way to automate some features of a presentation (e.g., the camera position) while retaining interactivity. Making a quicktime movie is less than ideal, because although I could pause the movie if a question is asked, I couldn't, for example, use a clipping plane to strip away a surface to show an underlying backbone,  and then smoothly resume the camera flight. Perhaps I should consider making a demo instead, where pauses are built in?
>
> Thanks
> Dan
>
> ____________________________
>
> Daniel Gurnon, Ph. D.
> Assistant Professor of Chemistry
> DePauw University
> Greencastle, IN 46135
>