[chimerax-users] dome camera mode

[Tom Goddard]

Hi James,

  I'm not sure what I was thinking a year ago when I said dome projection would be difficult to add to ChimeraX.

	http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2019-April/000471.html

It actually looks pretty easy because I long ago added to ChimeraX an equirectangular projection mode for making 360 videos.  That mode is called 360 in the ChimeraX camera command.

	https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/camera.html <https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/camera.html>

Our docs need some more description, the equirectangular projection just means longitude 0-360 along x axis and lattitude -90 to 90 degrees on the y axis of the rectangle image.  This is rendered from a cube map texture so the quality is good in all directions.  To get a fish eye projection would just involve replacing a bit of code that defines how to map the cube map to a hemisphere.

  I made a few planetarium biology videos long ago, one on HIV RNA,

	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-__ufO9LYg&t=15s <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-__ufO9LYg&t=15s>

and another zooming in on the human brain to molecular scale

	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2XMzInX_o

Those YouTube videos don't have the full fisheye hemisphere but I have those somewhere at 4k by 4k pixels if you are interested.

	Tom


> On Jan 16, 2020, at 11:25 AM, Tom Goddard <goddard at sonic.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi James,
> 
>   Great to hear that Chimera dome projection has been useful.  I'll look at how hard it would be to do it in ChimeraX.  I am a fan of putting these unique features in if others will make beautiful presentations with it.
> 
> 	Tom
> 
>> On Jan 15, 2020, at 6:31 AM, James Hedberg <jhedberg at ccny.cuny.edu <mailto:jhedberg at ccny.cuny.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi, 
>> 
>> I see from previous threads (3/2019) that there are no plans to add the dome projection/fisheye mode for the camera control on ChimeraX:
>> 
>> "It would take some days of work to add dome camera mode to ChimeraX.  We have no funding for that and very few people will use it so I'm afraid that is not likely to be implemented.”
>> 
>> I understand there is probably not a lot of current demand for this feature, however, in the spirit of Field of Dreams - if you build it, they will come. There is a growing interest in using planetariums/full domes for non-astro related sci-viz, yet very few tools available to do so. We’re currently using Chimera (regular) to do sci-viz in the planetarium for proteins and more. Knowing that this would be supported down the road when ChimeraX takes over (not sure when that will happen) would certainly be nice. You could make ChimeraX uniquely positioned to fill this deficit. 
>> 
>> Anyway, just a hand raised here for an informal poll of ‘who wants dome mode’.
>> 
>> Thanks, 
>> 
>> James
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Dr. James Hedberg 
>> Physics Lecturer 
>> Director, CCNY Planetarium <https://ccnyplanetarium.org/>
>> City College of New York 
>> Department of Physics
>> 
>> 
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