VMD-L Mailing List

From: Dieter Krachtus (DieterKrachtus_at_web.de)
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 09:04:45 CDT

Hi F. Alarcon,

If you like you can send me your PDB file and I try doing my best
converting it to STL. What do you need the STL file for ?

Cheers,
        D. Krachtus
        IWR - Heidelberg

  

John Stone wrote:

>Hi,
> The STL format used by 3-D printers has a number of very strict
>requirements which VMD cannot promise to meet any but the MSMS representation. The STL spec requires that surfaces not have self-intersections, that
>neighboring triangles share vertices, that they don't have T-style
>triangle joints, etc. The only representation that really follows
>most/all of the rules is the MSMS representation. If you want to
>export other VMD representations as STL, I'll wish you "good luck" but
>I make no promises that your 3-D printer will accept them. The latest
>round of 3-D printers have much more advanced software which is able
>to cope with some of the issues I listed above, but even these may only
>do a so-so job of creating a solid model from the thin geometry one gets
>using any of the reps other than MSMS.
>
>While it is true that the newer versions of VMD have made significant
>improvements to the range of geometry that the STL export will output,
>because the actual representations themselves do no gaurantee
>non-self-intersection etc, there's no way for the STL export to
>generate a STL file that's 100% compliant. The STL format is
>extremely limited in what it allows, so its not surprising to me
>that it gets upset when you export anything other than an MSMS
>representation. We added code to allow users to export more geometry
>than in past versions at the request of the VMD user community, but
>as I said above, due to the limitations of STL, I can't make any
>promises that any molecular structure representation other than
>an MSMS surface will result in an STL file that is actually printable
>by a specific printer.
>
>If you want predicatable results, stick to printing MSMS surfaces and you
>should be fine.
>
>Thanks,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
>
>On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 01:07:02PM -0300, alarcon_at_lncc.br wrote:
>
>
>>Dear all
>>
>>When exporting a pdb file (structure) in a STL file format, only the CA trace,
>>surface and ball-stick representation works fine. Unfortunately, my demand is
>>for a cartoon representation (helix as cylinders, strands as arrows, coils as
>>coils).
>>This representation always have several defects, mainly the not construction of
>>the cylinders and coils themselves (arrows have a lot of triangles with vertices
>>not common to neighbour triangles and other misplacements).
>>Is there some manner to fix that or other software to acomplish this ?
>>I was told that the newer version of VMD could fix that.
>>
>>Thanks in advance
>>
>>F. Alarcon
>>www.brgene.lncc.br
>>
>>
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>
>
>