From: Michael Doig (m.doig_at_sms.ed.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 17 2011 - 03:58:38 CDT

Hi,

I have looked at the ViewChangeRender plugin that you suggested and it
looks quite useful.
What I am not sure how to do is to play the trajectory file whilst I am
moving between viewpoints.
Is it possible to move between viewpoints a & b that you set, whilst
playing the trajectory file from frames x to y.
Additionally, when using the move_vp command (e.g move_vp 1 8 200
smooth) that will move between viewpoints 1 to 8 directly - is it
possible to move between all the viewpoints in order (i.e
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) or would you have to do each move_vp part separately
(i.e 1-2, 2-3, 3-4 ...) and render the individual move steps.

Finally, if you could also point me to the existing scripts you
mentioned, that would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Michael.

On 16/08/11 16:16, John Stone wrote:
> Hi,
> Have you looked at the new ViewChangeRender plugin?
> It is located in the Extensions|Visualization|ViewChangeRender menu item.
> ViewChangeRender lets you record a series of camera positions, and then
> build movies using them. Rather than record every single camera draw,
> this plugin records "keyframe" views, and interpolates between
> their positions, with user-defined speeds, etc. You may find that plugin
> far easier to use than just simply recording the raw sequence of viewing
> orientations obtained from the SpaceNavigator. The main issue with just
> recording the raw sequence of views is that they will play at different
> speeds on different machines, and you'll be recording every little twitch
> of the SpaceNavigator, which can sometimes give you a "home movie" look
> that's a bit shaky compared with using the approach that ViewChangeRender
> uses. Try ViewChangeRender (using the SpaceNavigator to fly around of
> course) and see if it does what you need. If you still want to record
> the raw views on-the-fly, I can point you at existing scripts you can use
> to help you get started writing your own scripts to do this.
>
> Cheers,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 12:16:42PM +0100, Michael Doig wrote:
>> I have a Spaceball navigator mouse that I use with VMD.
>>
>> What I would like to do is to record the "camera position" or
>> "viewpoints" in real time, as I am playing a trajectory file, and moving
>> around it and scaling it using the 3D mouse. I would then like to use
>> these viewpoints when rendering a movie of the trajectory.
>>
>> I know you can output the Spaceball positions in the console as
>> described here
>> (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/minitutorials/spaceball/), but if I
>> do that the visualization window does not update, so this is no good as
>> I cannot see how I am moving the camera position.
>>
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Michael.
>>
>> --
>> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
>> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.