[Chimera-users] Contour level animation ?

[Elaine Meng]

> On Feb 3, 2017, at 4:21 PM, esserlo at helix.nih.gov wrote:
> 
> Hi Elaine,
>  for a small demonstration, I want to make a movie in chimera where I animate
> a change in contour level. I have an EM map with noisy features that improve
> upon changing the level. I can do it by hand in the volume section but I
> cannot figure out what parameter it is even if I wanted to set it on the
> command line.
> Setting it on the command line I suppose would be the first step but then my
> question is: can this parameter be changed during an animation?
> Thanks,
>   Lothar

Hi Lothar,
Yes, you can use the “volume” command “level” option to change the contour level.

<http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/volume.html>
<http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/volume.html#general>

The “volume” command doesn’t itself have frames option, but you can combine it with the “perframe” command to perform a gradual change in a single line, as illustrated with this video mini-example:

<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/data/movie-howto-mar2012/movie_examples.html#contour>

We generally encourage emailing questions to chimera-users (CC’d here) unless they involve private data, since others may like to know the answer.

I hope this helps,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab (Chimera team) and Babbitt Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco