From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2006 - 16:52:51 CDT

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>

-- 
=======================================================================
Axel Kohlmeyer   akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu   http://www.cmm.upenn.edu
   Center for Molecular Modeling   --   University of Pennsylvania
Department of Chemistry, 231 S.34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6323
tel: 1-215-898-1582,  fax: 1-215-573-6233,  office-tel: 1-215-898-5425
=======================================================================
If you make something idiot-proof, the universe creates a better idiot.