One of the most common challenges in molecular modeling is sharing complex research setups with peers, collaborators, or even your future self. Whether it’s a protein-ligand setup, a molecular simulation system, or a visual analysis, reproducing someone else’s work—or rediscovering your own—can be surprisingly difficult without a clear mechanism to exchange project states.
This is where SAMSON Connect’s Shared Documents feature becomes incredibly practical. With this functionality, you can effortlessly share molecular modeling documents created in SAMSON directly with collaborators or the public. And just as importantly, you can also explore and download work shared by others, making it a valuable resource for learning and reuse. Let’s take a closer look. 👇
Why Share Documents?
Sharing a SAMSON document means transferring not just a file, but a complete scene: molecular systems, camera views, visual styles, analyses, and even jobs run in the cloud. It ensures precise reproducibility and reduces miscommunication during collaboration. A colleague can open your shared document and see exactly what you saw, with no software compatibility issues or additional installations.
How It Works
In SAMSON, you can share your document with just a few clicks. Simply sign in to your SAMSON Connect account, open the project in SAMSON, and choose to share it. Your file is then uploaded and made available through the Shared Documents page on SAMSON Connect. You can choose to make your document private (shared with selected users) or public for wider visibility.
You can browse existing shared documents at SAMSON Connect > Shared Documents. From there, you can download a shared document directly into your SAMSON workspace, where it will open exactly as intended.
Who Can Benefit?
- Students can explore real-world examples shared by others to learn new modeling techniques.
- Researchers can publish shared molecular modeling setups in papers or supplementals.
- Collaborative teams can iterate together on the same project by exchanging updated versions of shared documents.
Control and Privacy
Your shared content is always under your control. You can manage your documents inside your profile under Account > Documents. There, you can set document visibility, remove files, or update permissions.
An Example of Shared Documents in Action
This image shows the shared documents interface where users can browse and access various molecular modeling scenes. Each entry shows the document’s name, author, number of downloads, and relevant tags, making it easy to discover useful examples.
More details on this feature can be found in the SAMSON Connect documentation.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.