VMD-L Mailing List

From: Marcos Ackel (mvackel_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Oct 14 2012 - 12:42:38 CDT

Hi John, I've received the Falcons and built the necessary libs to make it work on Windows XP (I"m with some problems, but it's working). I've seeing how the molecule is grabbed by the tool and moved around. I think there is no doubt that there is a problem with the SpaceNavigator (at least on Windows XP), because neither button can grab the molecule in tracker mode (or in any other mode). Now that I have a working model (Falcon) I'll try to finish compiling VMD and do some debugging. Can you tell me what should be the method called to grab the molecule? Thank you, Marcos Ackel ________________________________ From: John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> To: Marcos Ackel <mvackel_at_yahoo.com> Cc: VMD_List <vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu> Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 6:55 PM Subject: Re: vmd-l: Using Tools (grab, tug, etc) Hi,   The "Grab" tool is used just to re-orient the molecule view, much like the mouse does when not doing IMD.  The Grab tool doesn't apply any forces on the molecule or otherwise change it.  The "Tug" tool is the one that you would use to apply forces to molecules and change their structure in a running IMD simulation.  If you don't have IMD running, it will have no effect.  If you have trouble picking structure when using the Tug tool with the SpaceNavigator, be sure to try using the "Assigned Rep" tab of the Tool menu.  This supercedes the mouse/force/atom type mode you're familiar with in the Mouse menu, and allows you to apply the forces on the atoms that are selected in any of the currently active graphical representations.  This way, you can just make a rep for the atoms you want to pull on, and you can tell the Tool menu to use the molecule rep, and then you don't have to pick individual atoms etc.  This is the preferred way to use any of the 6DOF input devices, whether using something like a SpaceNavigator, or even when using more sophisticated haptic devices like the Sensable Phantom or the Novint Falcon. Let me know if you need more help getting that working. Cheers,   John Stone   vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu