Have you ever zoomed into your molecular system in SAMSON and wondered where your carefully added labels went? Or perhaps you stepped back from a large complex and the labels cluttered the view? If you work with molecular models and rely on annotations, you’re not alone—managing label visibility can be a subtle, but persistent challenge.
This post walks you through controlling how and when labels appear in the Viewport of SAMSON. This is especially useful when you’re juggling different scales—from a whole protein down to individual side chains—and need your labels to follow along.
Dynamic Label Visibility Based on Zoom
By default, SAMSON intelligently hides and reveals labels depending on your zoom level. As you zoom in, finer details like atomic or residue labels appear. When zooming out, broader-level labels for molecules or groups show up instead.
This is helpful—for example, in complex systems with thousands of atoms, full label visibility could cause more harm than clarity. But what if you want to override this behavior?
Customizing Display Radii
You can specify at what zoom level a label will be visible using the minimum and maximum display radius properties. Here’s how:
- Select the label (or labels) you want to modify.
- Open the Inspector panel.
- Adjust the minimum and maximum display radius sliders. These define the zoom thresholds where the label appears or disappears.
For example, if you’re labeling a specific atom, you might want visibility only when zoomed closely. For a larger molecular domain, raise the minimum visibility radius so it stays visible even when zoomed out.
Quick On/Off Switching
Not trying to get too fancy? You can toggle individual labels on or off using the Document view. Just tick or untick the checkbox next to each label.
When Precision Matters in Reports and Exports
Clear visuals often make the difference in presentations, publications, or team communication. If your labels vanish unpredictably, adjusting their visibility settings ensures you’re exporting exactly what you want others to see—no surprises after rendering a scene or taking a screenshot.
Need even more control? You can combine visibility settings with custom colors, fonts, or transparency for a fully tailored set of annotations that adapt to what you’re trying to communicate.
To dig deeper into managing label behavior in SAMSON, head over to the official documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/labeling/.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.