VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 16 2006 - 13:41:21 CST

Ana,
  It would be helpful to see exactly how you've changed the scripts so there's
no confusion on what you're actually comparing. You didn't say anything
about how different the RMSD values are, but they are bound to be somewhat
different just because you have different atoms in each selection, and
different numbers of atoms, so you'll definitely get different results,
it's just a question of how different... One thing that may help is to
use the same selections you're using for the RMSD calculations as
graphical representations to highlight the particular selections you're
interested in. Then, in order to see more clearly, you may want to use
the Trajectory tab "Draw Multiple Frames" option to show the timesteps
that you're comparing superimposed on each other. In order to see them
more easily, you can then change the coloring method to "Timestep".
Give that a try and see if it helps make more sense of the numbers you're
getting from the RMSD calculation.

  John

On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 02:31:28PM -0500, Ana Celia Araujo Vila Verde wrote:
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> Based on the script to obtain the RMSD of one molecule relative to the same molecule at time 0, which can be found on the VMD manual, I built a very similar one to calculate the RMSD just for certain selections of the protein (see below signature). My problem is that if I do
>
>
>
> selection "sheet protein backbone", the RMSD for sheet is OK but for protein and for backbone is wrong (I think).
>
>
>
> If I take the exact same procedure and simply change to
>
>
>
> selection " protein "
>
>
>
> and then to
>
>
>
> selection "backbone ",
>
>
>
> I get different values for their respective RMSD! This leads me to think that the RMSD I get for protein and for backbone when I use """ selection "sheet protein backbone" """ is incorrect.
>
>
>
> Could anyone shine some light on this? Clearly I'm doing something wrong, but I looked at the code for hours and could not find it.
>
>
>
> Thanks Ana
>
>
>
> _________________________________
>
> Ana Célia Araújo Vila Verde
>
> Penn State University
>
> Department of Chemical Engineering
>
> Fenske Laboratory
> University Park, PA 16802
>
> USA
>
>
>
> Phone: +(1) (814) 863-2879
> Fax: +(1) (814) 865-7846
>
> avilaverde_at_engr.psu.edu
>
> _________________________________
>
>
>
> To execute I type vmd -dispdev text -e nameOfFile.tcl on the unix command line.
>
>
>
> proc print_rmsd0_through_time {{mol top}} {
>
>
>
> ##################################
>
> set selection "sheet protein backbone" ;# the RMSD calculation is done for the elements of this list
>
> #################################
>
> set refFrame 0 ;# the RMDS is calculated against this reference
>
> set incrm 1; # the comparison is done every incrm number of frames
>
> set durTimestep 0.000002; # duration of the timestep in the simulation, in nanoseconds
>
> set stepsFrame 500; # number of timesteps in each frame in *dcd fil
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> foreach sel $selection {
>
> set outFile try21RMSD_${sel}_refFrame${refFrame}.txt; # result goes to this file
>
> set out [open $outFile w]
>
> puts $out "computing RMSD for all sheets using frame $refFrame as reference"
>
> puts $out "time (ns) RMSD (angstrom)"
>
>
>
> set reference [atomselect $mol "protein and $sel" frame $refFrame]
>
> # the frame being compared
>
> set compare [atomselect $mol "protein and $sel"]
>
>
>
> set num_steps [molinfo $mol get numframes]
>
> # Does comparison every incrm 30 frames
>
> for {set frme $refFrame} {$frme <= $num_steps} {incr frme $incrm} {
>
> # get the correct frame
>
> $compare frame $frme
>
>
>
> # compute the transformation
>
> set trans_mat [measure fit $compare $reference]
>
> # do the alignment
>
> $compare move $trans_mat
>
> # compute the RMSD
>
> set rmsd [measure rmsd $compare $reference]
>
> # print the RMSD
>
> # puts "RMSD of $frame is $rmsd"
>
> set time [expr {$frme*$stepsFrame*$durTimestep}]
>
> puts $out "$time $rmsd"
>
> }
>
> close $out
>
> $compare delete
>
> unset trans_mat
>
> unset rmsd
>
> unset reference
>
> unset num_steps
>
> }
>
> }
>
> # Call procedure
>
> print_rmsd0_through_time
>
> #
>
> quit
> 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078