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NAME

       rods - Raster3D preprocessor for ball-and-stick models

SYNOPSIS

       rods [-h] [-b] [-radius R] [-Bcolor Bmin Bmax]

       Rods reads a file describing atom colours and/or a PDB coordinate file
       and produces a file containing Raster3D descriptor records.  The file
       produced by rods may be fed directly to render or it may be combined
       with descriptor files produced by other Raster3D utilities.

EXAMPLES

       To describe a simple bonds-only model coloured by residue type:

            cat mycolours.pdb protein.pdb | rods | render > mypicture.png

       To render the same molecule as ball-and-stick:

            cat mycolours.pdb protein.pdb | rods -b | render > mypicture.png

OPTIONS

       -h

       Suppress header records in output.  By default rods will produce an
       output file which starts with header records containing a default set
       of scaling and processing options.  The -h flag will suppress these
       header records so that the output file contains only object
       descriptors.  This option is useful for producing files which describe
       only part of a scene, and which are to be later combined with
       descriptor files produced by other programs.

       -b

       By default rods will describe bonds only; the -b flag will cause it to
       include spheres at the atom positions also, yielding a ball-and-stick
       representation.

       -radius R

       By default rods will draw bonds as cylinders with a 0.2A radius.  The
       radius option allows you to change this cylindrical radius.

       -Bcolor Bmin Bmax

       Assign colors based on B values rather than from atom or residue types.
       Atoms with B <= Bmin will be colored dark blue; atoms with B >= Bmax
       will be colored light red; atoms with Bmin < B < Bmax will be assigned
       colors shading smoothly through the spectrum from blue to red.

DESCRIPTION

       The input to rods consists of a single text file containing colour
       information and atomic coordinates in PDB data bank format.
       Coordinates are output as Raster3D descriptor records with colours and
       sphere radii assigned according to the COLO records described below.
       Ball-and-stick figures have atoms drawn at 0.2 * VanderWaals radius,
       connected by rods with a default 0.2A cylindrical radius.  Bonds are
       drawn for atoms which lie closer to each other than 0.6 * (sum of
       VanderWaals radii).  By default the output file contains a set of
       header records as required by the render program.  The header is
       constructed to include a TMAT matrix corresponding to the
       transformation matrix contained in file setup.matrix (if it exists), or
       to the Eulerian angles contained in file setup.angles (if it exists).

       Colours are assigned to atoms using a matching process, using COLOUR
       records prepended to the input PDB file.  If no COLOUR records are
       present in the input file, atoms will  receive default CPK colors
       (C=grey, O=red, N=blue, S=yellow, P=green, other=magenta).  Raster3D
       uses a pseudo-PDB record type with the same basic layout as the above
       but with COLO in the first 4 columns:

          Columns

           1 -  4   COLO

           7 - 30   Mask (described below)

          31 - 38   Red component

          39 - 46   Green component

          47 - 54   Blue component

          55 - 60   van der Waals radius in Angstroms

          61 - 80   Comments

       Note that the Red, Green, and Blue components are in the same positions
       as the X, Y, and Z components of an ATOM or HETA record, and the van
       der Waals radius goes in place of the Occupancy.  The Red, Green, and
       Blue components must all be in the range 0 to 1.

       The Mask field is used in the matching process as follows.  First the
       program reads in and stores all the ATOM, HETA, and COLO records in
       input order.  Then it goes through each stored ATOM/HETA record in
       turn, and searches for a COLO record that matches the ATOM/HETA record
       in all of columns 7 through 30.  The first such COLO record to be found
       determines the colour and radius of the atom.

       In order that one COLO record can provide colour and radius
       specifications for more than one atom (e.g., based on residue or atom
       type, or any other criterion for which labels can be given somewhere in
       columns 7 through 30), the "#" symbol is used as a wildcard. I.e. a #
       in a COLO record matches any character in the corresponding column in
       an ATOM or HETA record.  All other characters must match literally to
       count as a match.  Note that the very last COLO record in the input
       should have # symbols in all of columns 7 through 30 in order to
       provide a colour for any atom whose ATOM/HETA record fails to match any
       previous COLO record.  This idea of matching masks for colour
       specifications is due to Colin Broughton.

ENVIRONMENT

       The files setup.matrix and setup.angles, if they exist, affect the
       header records produced by rods.

SOURCE

       anonymous ftp site:
            ftp.bmsc.washington.edu

       web URL:
            http://www.bmsc.washington.edu/raster3d/raster3d.html

       contact:
            Ethan A Merritt
            University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195
            merritt@u.washington.edu

SEE ALSO

       render(l), ribbon(l), balls(l)

AUTHORS

            Ethan A Merritt