From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Tue Jul 26 2011 - 01:36:14 CDT

2011/7/26 ع <he.yuhui.ime_at_gmail.com>:
> Dear all,
>
> I am now running vmd 1.9 on CentOS 5.6. After import PDB and PSF files
> of a double-stranded DNA molecule, I hope to save the image in SVG format so
> that further treatment can be made with.

> I clicked "File" and then "Render". In the popped-up window, I selected
> "Tachyon (internal, in-memory rendering)" for "Rendering the current scene
> using:", set "Filename" as "sample.svg", and used the default "display %s"
> for "Rendering command". Now, I clicked "Start rendering" button. Surely
> there emergied a file "sample.svg" in the directory. However, it could not
> be opened with GIMP or Inkscape tools for svg files.

> Besides, there poped up some new windows: one titled "ImageMagick:
> sample.svg" which was a image of the DNA molecule; another "Commands
> ImageMagick" where several buttons were presented such as "File", "Edit",
> "View" and so on. I tried to select "File" -> "Save", and then wrote the
> filename as "sample_1.svg" with "Format" as SVG. Howver, after clicking
> "save" button, it prompted that "unable to save X image: sample.svg".
>
> Can anyone give me some advice?

what you want to do is not possible. the svg format is a vector format,
however the tachyon renderer (and all other raytracing tools) generate
pixel based images. the closest you can get to a vector output is using
the postscript renderer, but that is a rather crude approximation of the
scene. anything of higher quality would require a significant programming
effort by somebody with a lot of experience in these things.

cheers,
    axel.

>
> Thanks very much!
>
> Yuhui
>
>
> --
> Ph. D He Yuhui (ع)
> Specially Appointed Researcher
> Kawai Lab
> Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University;
> Mihogaoka 8-1, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0047. JAPAN
>
>

-- 
Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer
akohlmey_at_gmail.com  http://goo.gl/1wk0
Institute for Computational Molecular Science
Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA.