VMD-L Mailing List

From: Jan Saam (saam_at_charite.de)
Date: Mon Sep 04 2006 - 13:20:08 CDT

Hi John and Axel,

It just came to my mind that a very nice graphics primitive would be a
come with a cut tip, i.e a tube with a linearly increasing diameter from
one end to the other. This would be great to visualize a scalar value
along a 1D path through a 3D volume. I'm envisioning a snake with
varying thickness.
But maybe this could even be a volumetric drawing method.
What do you think?

Jan

Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Sep 2006, Jan Saam wrote:
>
> JS> Hi John,
> JS>
> JS> Here are my two cents:
> JS> It would be nice to have an arrow, boxes and some sort of parametric
> JS> surfaces.
>
> yep, but at least for arrows, boxes (good point, i'll add that,
> and square) and alike, i would expect you can usually go
> without having a graphics version. if those are scripted,
> the bottleneck should be elsewhere.
>
> JS> And splines; I could use splines,too. (I know that VMD is no CAD program
> JS> but you were asking...)
> JS>
> JS> Also it would be nice if materials would be object specific, mot
> JS> molecule specific.
>
>
> JS> Further a 3D grid maybe even with rulers would be nice.
>
> something like that i have actually seen on some of the
> plugin/script pages linked from the VMD homepage...
>
>
> axel.
>
> JS> But what I would like most is if one could pick and move objects so that
> JS> one does not have to use dummy atoms. Consequently it would also be nice
> JS> to be able to transform objects using the trans/rot matrices.
> JS>
> JS> Jan
> JS>
> JS> John Stone wrote:
> JS> > Going a step further, if people have a need for some of these
> JS> > additions to run very fast, and they'd get used by a lot of
> JS> > people's analysis scripts/plugins/etc, I'm willing to consider
> JS> > creating new low-level drawing commands in VMD to boost performance
> JS> > if necessary...
> JS> >
> JS> > John
> JS> >
> JS> > On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 10:59:13PM +0200, Jan Saam wrote:
> JS> >
> JS> >> Hi Axel,
> JS> >>
> JS> >> Good idea!
> JS> >> Not checking what you have collected already I'm sending a file
> JS> >> containing 2 or 3 such commands.
> JS> >>
> JS> >> Grüße aus der Heimat,
> JS> >> Jan
> JS> >>
> JS> >> Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> JS> >>
> JS> >>> hi everybody,
> JS> >>>
> JS> >>> as many of you might know, the 'draw' command in VMD can be extended via
> JS> >>> providing procedures of the name vmd_draw_XXX, which would be turned into
> JS> >>> a draw XXX command. the general idea is to provide an option to
> JS> >>> overide the
> JS> >>> internal graphics command and intergrate compound objects built from the
> JS> >>> povided primitives. there is one example in the user's guide and i've
> JS> >>> started
> JS> >>> building some more, while at the same time making them as similar as
> JS> >>> possible
> JS> >>> to the internal graphics commands (and thus the default draw commands).
> JS> >>> the result is currently at:
> JS> >>> http://biocore.ks.uiuc.edu/biocore/biofs/VMD%20(Public)/src/rpm/vmd_draw_lib.tcl
> JS> >>>
> JS> >>> and can be used by copying it into $VMDDIR/scripts/init.d/ or using the
> JS> >>> contributed rpm(s).
> JS> >>>
> JS> >>> i'm currently looking for additional implementations of those kind of
> JS> >>> compound
> JS> >>> draw objects, so that i know what is used and needed and that we can have
> JS> >>> a reliable and consistent library of those scripts that could be
> JS> >>> shipped with
> JS> >>> vmd at some point in time and that script or plugin writer can depend on
> JS> >>> (and thus do not have to reinvent that wheel over and over again).
> JS> >>> don't worry, if your draw extension is not written as elaborately as the
> JS> >>> ones provided in the library so far, i'm more interested to see what
> JS> >>> other
> JS> >>> people want/need and some kind of prototype implementation.
> JS> >>>
> JS> >>> best regards,
> JS> >>> axel.
> JS> >>>
> JS> >>>
> JS> >> --
> JS> >> ---------------------------
> JS> >> Jan Saam
> JS> >> Institute of Biochemistry
> JS> >> Charite Berlin
> JS> >> Monbijoustr. 2
> JS> >> 10117 Berlin
> JS> >> Germany
> JS> >>
> JS> >> +49 30 450-528-446
> JS> >> saam_at_charite.de
> JS> >>
> JS> >
> JS> >
> JS>
> JS>
>
> 

-- 
---------------------------
Jan Saam
Institute of Biochemistry
Charite Berlin
Monbijoustr. 2
10117 Berlin
Germany
+49 30 450-528-446
saam_at_charite.de