When working on molecular models, measurements are vital. Whether you’re calculating bond lengths, angles, or torsion, clarity and reproducibility are essential — especially when presenting your model, collaborating, or coming back to your work months later.
This is where SAMSON’s Measure editor becomes a helpful tool, and understanding the distinction between temporary and saved measurements can prevent confusion and streamline your workflow.
🎯 The Problem: One Measurement at a Time?
Have you ever clicked on an atom pair to inspect their distance, only to have it disappear the moment you make the next measurement? That’s because unless you take a simple extra step, most measurements in SAMSON are temporary by default.
Temporary measurements:
- Appear as soon as you click on bonds, atoms, or more complex selections
- Are clearly visible at all zoom levels
- Disappear when a new measurement is made
So, if you want to compare multiple distances, or keep a reference measurement visible while analyzing another region, you need to convert temporary measurements into labels.
✅ The Solution: Save as Label
Any measurement can be saved permanently by simply hitting Enter right after making it. This creates a label in the document that sticks with your structure, and is saved if you export the document in SAMSON’s native .sam or .samx formats.
Why Use Labels?
Once a measurement is saved as a label, you have much more flexibility:
- Refer back to it later during your session
- Display multiple measurements at once
- Export and share complete annotated models
- Edit appearance: font, color, and position
These labels are also fully editable, and respond dynamically to geometry changes — if the atoms move or you run energy minimization, the distances and angles update in real time.
✏️ Customize to Communicate
In presentations or reports, highlighting specific distances or angles with custom colors can make your point clearer. SAMSON’s Inspector lets you modify:
- Text color and font
- Line and plane colors (distance lines or angle planes)
- Offset for better readability
Need to reset colors or fonts to defaults? Just double-click the property in the Inspector or click the X beside the field. There’s also a centralized Preferences panel if you want global formatting for all labels.
Bonus: Formal and partial charges can also be added as labels with a couple of clicks via the context toolbar.
🧭 Final Thoughts
Label management might seem minor, but it profoundly impacts the clarity and efficiency of molecular modeling. When you’re deep into a design task, knowing how and when to make your labels persistent saves time and minimizes repetition.
To learn more about managing measurement labels and customization, visit the full documentation at:
https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/measuring/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.