From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 02 2015 - 15:29:12 CDT

Hi,
  Modern journal figures are typically produced with bitmapped graphics
at a high resolution, such as 300 to 600dpi, typically equating to
images with dimensions in the 1500x1500 to 3000x3000 range.

None of the mainstream molecular graphics tools do much with direct rendering
to vector graphics formats anymore, because the vector graphics formats
typically aren't able to reproduce high quality shading in the way
that bitmapped images produced with ray tracing or similar techniques
are capable of.

You can produce a PDF from any bitmap image with a panoply
of image conversion tools. The key issue is ensuring that
the figures are at a resolution that matches or exceeds the
journal's print resolution (e.g. 300, 600, and 1200dpi are common).

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Wed, Sep 02, 2015 at 02:17:11PM -0600, Eric Smoll wrote:
> Hello VMD users,
> I am interested in publishing graphics rendered by VMD. Our target journal
> is asking for the submission of pdf's and vector graphics.A
> According to this page:
> [1]http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/vmd-1.7.1/ug/node89.html
> The only format that might produce a vector graphic is postscript. Is this
> correct?A
> When I attempt to render my system with postscript, atoms displayed as
> "points" are not visible. However the file is quite large (800 MB) and
> difficult to view with ghostview (perhaps they are only visible at
> sufficient levels of zoom). Has anyone had this problem before?
> Also, is there a way to change the font and font size used in VMD?
> Best,
> Eric
>
> References
>
> Visible links
> 1. http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/vmd-1.7.1/ug/node89.html

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/