Navigating through complex molecular structures can be challenging, especially when trying to present dynamic visualizations that clearly show vertical arrangements in biomolecules, materials, or molecular machines. Standard perspective views often miss key spatial relationships. For molecular modelers who want to precisely explore or present vertical motions — such as scanning up a DNA helix, exploring layered materials, or showing reactions occurring along a vertical axis — the Pedestal camera animation in SAMSON offers a straightforward solution.
Unlike freeform camera controls which can lead to disorienting navigation, the Pedestal camera animation moves the viewer’s point of view vertically between two keyframes without changing viewing angles. This allows for clean, interpretable tracking of vertical features in your system.
What Does the Pedestal Camera Do?
The Pedestal camera effect vertically shifts both the camera’s position and target point in a perfectly parallel way. In practice, this means the entire field of view climbs (or descends) along the vertical axis without rotating. If you’re showing molecular layers, active sites stacked in space, or aligning with crystalline planes — this gives you a very natural way to reveal vertical progression without introducing visual distortion.
How to Use It in Practice
- Open the Animator panel in SAMSON and select a start frame in the animation timeline.
- Orient your camera view as needed — this will serve as the baseline animation starting point.
- Double-click the Pedestal camera animation effect in the Animation panel. The current camera position and target point are now locked as the starting pose for the animation.
- Move forward on the timeline and set the end frame. There, the camera and target point will both be moved upward by a fixed vertical displacement.
Everything in between — from start to end — is interpolated automatically. You can also adjust how this interpolation behaves by modifying the easing curve, creating smoother or sharper transitions.
Customization Options
- Apply to a specific camera: By default, the pedestal animation applies to the active camera. If you’re working with multiple viewpoints, you can inspect and change which camera is used.
- Keep orientation upright: If you’re using a grid in your scene, you can check the Keep camera upwards toggle to align motion with the vertical defined by the grid. This helps maintain upward consistency, especially when working in grid-aligned systems such as crystallography apps.
- Fine-tune the endpoints: You can adjust the camera’s start and end positions manually using animation controllers, although the Pedestal camera may constrain how much you shift them.
Why It Helps
When presenting scientific animations or assembling publication figures involving vertical structure, clarity is critical. The Pedestal camera animation allows focused vertical inspection without any angular drift — a small design, but with practical implications. It eliminates effort spent manually controlling both the camera position and orientation while trying to maintain verticality in motion. The result is a smooth, interpretable fly-through of stacked biomolecules or nanostructures that you can reuse or present with confidence.
To learn more, visit the official documentation for the Pedestal Camera animation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/pedestal-camera/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net