Molecular modelers often face a common challenge: how to keep their visualizations clean and clear without losing essential information. Labels are helpful for providing context—atom names, residue types, measurements—but flooding the screen with too many labels can quickly make a system unreadable, especially during zooming or when working with large structures.
Thankfully, SAMSON offers a simple but powerful feature that lets you control when labels appear or disappear based on zoom level. This ensures your labeled structures scale cleanly with your viewport, whether you’re examining a whole molecule or zooming in on a specific site.
What Is Display Radius?
In SAMSON, each label can be assigned a minimum and maximum display radius. These control at what viewport scale the label becomes visible. This means, for example, that you can keep residues labeled when zoomed out on a protein, while making sure individual atom labels only appear when you’re zoomed in close enough to see them clearly.
How to Customize Label Visibility
Here’s the step-by-step way to control label visibility using the Inspector:
- Select the label you’d like to adjust. You can do this in the Document view or directly in the Viewport, provided the Selection filter is set to “Labels.”
- Open the Inspector.
- Locate the Display radius settings.
- Adjust the minimum radius (label becomes visible when zoomed in to this scale) and maximum radius (label disappears when fully zoomed out beyond this).
These radius values give you precise control over the presence of each label in your scene. For example, you might want:
- Atom-level labels to appear only when zoomed in tight (small min/max radius).
- Chain or molecule identifiers to stay visible when zoomed out (larger radius range).
Visual Example 🔍
Here’s how SAMSON dynamically adapts label visibility during zooming:
In this animation, atom labels fade out when zooming out, while higher-level labels (e.g., residues or chains) remain visible. This creates a more readable visualization and keeps your Viewport uncluttered.
Extra Tip: Batch Editing
You can select multiple labels and apply display radius settings to all of them at once. Simply hold Ctrl (Windows/Linux) or Cmd (macOS) while clicking labels, then adjust settings in the Inspector with the Edit all selected nodes option enabled.
Conclusion
By adjusting label visibility based on zoom level, you can make your molecular visualizations in SAMSON significantly more intuitive and readable. Whether you’re preparing a publication figure, a presentation, or simply trying to keep track of specific structural features, mastering this subtle control improves both clarity and efficiency.
To explore more about labeling in SAMSON, check the full documentation section here: Labeling in SAMSON.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.