VMD-L Mailing List

From: Josh Vermaas (vermaas2_at_illinois.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 13 2016 - 16:39:19 CST

Hi Eric,

What I do for my own images is to add labels as a post-processing step.
Inkscape (I use it since its free and runs on linux) lets me choose
better looking fonts and places the text so that is on the "top" layer,
rather than fighting with other elements of the scene for a spot on the
z-buffer. Gimp, photoshop, or Illustrator would let you do the same
thing. Think about what others in the lab do, something like that
workflow is pretty common, since that is what it takes to make the
figure labels good enough for publication. Your layering method would
work too, I'm just not sure if I could deal with the font choices!

-Josh

On 01/13/2016 03:33 PM, Eric Smoll wrote:
> Hello VMD users,
>
> What is the recommended way to attach labels to atoms in VMD 1.9.2? If
> I "draw text" the atom index at the location of each atom it is
> obscured by the surface of common drawing methods (cpk, vdw, etc.).
> Adding a manual offset to each label is laborious and tied to a
> specific camera setting.
>
> I assume there is no way to "layer" representations so the labels show
> up on top of the image, correct? I could export the labels and the
> atoms as separate transparent images and overlay them in gimp. Is this
> the "recommended" method?
>
> Best,
> Eric