[chimerax-users] exporting from Chimera to ChimeraX

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Jane,
(1) You cannot open a Chimera session in ChimeraX... they are two different programs.

However, if you restore the Chimera session in Chimera, you can export a file to open in ChimeraX.  This works for most atomic structure data and molecular surfaces *IF* you use a recent daily build of Chimera to do this export.  It does not include density maps (volume data).  See Chimera menu: File... Export Scene, and choose the option to save a python file for ChimeraX.  There is also an "export" command that can do the same thing.
<https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/export.html>

If you use an older version of Chimera, it will include fewer things in the export, but whether you care or not depends on what's actually in your session. You can download a new daily build of Chimera from the website: 
<https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/download.html#daily>

(2) Chimera and ChimeraX have slightly different rules about how they display something when it is first opened.  You might be able to just change the display to how you want, but I don't know how you want it to look.  Also to say exactly what's going on with this structure we would need you to attach the file (or if you just opened a specific PDB ID, tell us what ID you used).  It sounds like there might be something specific about that structure that prevented ChimeraX from showing ribbons, if that is what you wanted.

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

> On Nov 22, 2021, at 2:10 PM, JANE LEE via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi, 
> I was wondering how/if I could open saved session files from Chimera in Chimerax? Also, when I tried to open a protein in Chimera, it opened. But when I tried to open the same protein in Chimerax, it only showed up as atoms and I received the message "start residue of secondary structure not found." I was wondering if you have any suggestions for troubleshooting? Thank you!
> Regards,
> Jane