Coloring Methods

VMD maintains a database of the colors used for the molecules and other graphical objects which are visible in the display window. It keeps track of

• color name definitions - its RGB value;
• mappings from a color category to color name - so residue name MET is colored yellow
• the current color scale - red to white to blue, and several related parameters

There are 1057 colors available in VMD, with color ids ranging from 0 to 1056. The first 33 are, in order: blue, red, gray, orange, yellow, tan, silver, green, white, pink, cyan, purple, lime, mauve, ochre, iceblue, black, yellow2, yellow3, green2, green3, cyan2, cyan3, blue2, blue3, violet, violet2, magenta, magenta2, red2, red3, orange2, and orange3.

The next group of 1024 colors (from 33 to 1056) are colors used in the color map, These can be set to one of several ranges with the Color window or the color text command: red $\rightarrow$ green $\rightarrow$ blue, red $\rightarrow$ white $\rightarrow$ blue, or black $\rightarrow$ white, etc. There are no names for the specific colors. The color map will be discussed in more detail in a section to follow.