When presenting or analyzing complex molecular systems, one common challenge is visual clutter. Protein assemblies and large biomolecular structures often appear as dense blocks where important elements can be hidden or hard to distinguish. If you’ve ever struggled to present a clear view of specific components in a macromolecular complex or create an educational animation that explains structure-function relationships, there’s a feature in SAMSON that could help: the Disassemble animation.
The Disassemble effect in the SAMSON Animator allows you to visually pull apart a group of atoms, structural nodes, or meshes. This makes space between components, helping you or your viewers better understand what’s happening in a specific region of the molecular model — without permanently modifying the structure.
Why Disassemble?
Imagine you’re preparing a presentation for a protein-ligand complex. The ligand is deeply buried in a binding pocket, and showing its position relative to other residues is crucial — but everything is stacked too closely. Using “Disassemble,” you can temporarily spread out the structure to highlight relationships without losing spatial context. It’s like giving your audience X-ray vision, but controlled for specific units in motion 📡.
How to Set Up a Disassemble Animation
To begin, you’ll want to:
- Select the group of atoms or nodes you’d like to disassemble. You can select chains, domains, or even just a few atoms.
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click the Disassemble animation from the list of effects.
SAMSON will automatically calculate final positions away from the current ones, distributing the selected components spatially to improve inspection.
Tweaking Parameters for Clarity
By default, the amplitude (i.e., how far things move apart) is automatically determined. But in some cases, you might want a tighter disassembly or a more dramatic spread for your presentation. Adjust this using the Inspector.
You can also fine-tune how the movement occurs between keyframes by modifying the easing curve. For example, easing out will create a slower arrival into the disassembled state, which can be visually pleasing in a guided walkthrough.
Examples in Action
Here’s what the Disassemble animation looks like in action:
Select the range of time between two keyframes where you want the objects to spread. After that, feel free to rearrange the keyframes in the timeline — their relative positioning controls the animation speed.
When to Use Disassemble
- In molecular tutorials, to enhance clarity for students viewing complex tertiary or quaternary structures
- Creating figures or animations for publications, posters, or conference talks
- During collaborative sessions to quickly highlight molecular regions of interest
This method becomes even more effective when paired with other SAMSON animations like Assemble or Hold atoms, giving you flexible storytelling tools for structural biology and chemistry.
To dive deeper into how to use this animation, visit the official documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/disassemble/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.