Watching a molecular trajectory unfold can be both a critical part of your work and an informative way to communicate dynamic processes. But setting up such animations can often be tedious — especially when trying to synchronize structural transitions or play through a pathway smoothly. If you’re using SAMSON, there’s a built-in tool to make this process much easier: the Play Path animation effect.
What is the ‘Play Path’ Animation?
The Play Path animation in SAMSON is designed to drive visualization of trajectories or transitions between conformations. Whether you’re displaying the folding of a peptide, navigating through a docking pathway, or showing how two molecular conformations relate, this feature visualizes the motion along a pre-defined path. Paths in SAMSON store trajectories, and this effect lets you play them between two keyframes in your animation timeline.
Who Benefits from This?
Molecular modelers often deal with complex transitions — from reaction mechanisms to dynamic simulations. Watching structure transitions in real-time (or slowed down) is essential for interpretation and presentation. But you often want to:
- Synchronize multiple structural evolutions
- Smooth out jagged trajectory frames
- Use clear, reproducible animations in presentations or teaching
Play Path hits these needs directly by letting you preview and render trajectory movements in a controlled and adjustable way.
How to Set It Up
Here’s how to animate a path in SAMSON:
- Select the path node you want to animate. This could be an imported trajectory or any path node already in your document.
- Open the Animation panel found in the Animator.
- Double-click on the Play Path effect to add it to your timeline.
- Adjust the keyframes to set the start and end of the animation. The animation will interpolate between the positions in the path over time.
Flexible Controls in the Inspector
If the number of animation frames and trajectory frames do not match, SAMSON will automatically smooth the motion. You can disable this behavior if you want a frame-by-frame exact match — just visit the Inspector.
You can also modify the easing curve between keyframes. This controls whether the animation moves at a constant speed, accelerates, or decelerates — useful for matching physical intuition or highlighting specific portions of a trajectory.
Best Practices
- Use synchronized paths to compare multiple molecules or states side by side.
- Disable smoothing when you need precise frame matching with simulation outputs.
- Adjust easing curves to create smoother, more illustrative motions for presentation.
To learn more, explore the full documentation for the Play Path animation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.