When building or analyzing molecular systems, one of the most common and necessary tasks is measuring distances between atoms. Whether you’re evaluating bond lengths, verifying docking poses, or checking geometrical constraints, distance measurements are essential to understand spatial relationships within and between molecules.
But despite how essential it is, many molecular modelers still spend extra time navigating interfaces or manually selecting tool options just to retrieve a simple value. If you’re using SAMSON, the integrative platform for molecular design, there’s a fast and flexible way to display measurements that you might not be using to its full potential yet: the Measure editor.
Start Measuring in Seconds
To open the Measure editor in SAMSON, you can use this quick shortcut:
Ctrl / Cmd + M
Alternatively, click on the ruler icon (
) in the left-side menu inside the viewport.
How to Use It
- Click on two atoms to display the distance between them.
- Click on a bond to toggle the display of its length.
- You can also click on three atoms to measure an angle or on four atoms to display a torsion.
The measurement appears directly in the viewport as an overlay. When you perform another measurement, the previous one disappears, unless you’ve saved it.
Keeping Your Measurements
Want to compare several distances or keep measurements for documentation purposes?
Press Enter to save the current measurement as a label in your document. Once saved, it’s no longer temporary and can be found in the document tree or edited in the Inspector.
Visualizing in More Detail
When saved, distance measurements come with additional information. If the data is saved as a label, you can inspect it further:
- Open the Inspector panel and select the label.
- See projections of the atom-atom distances onto orthogonal planes.
This is particularly useful for better understanding molecular geometry in 3D space.
Bonus: Customize the Appearance
Saved measurement labels are customizable. Within the Inspector, you can:
- Set the color of lines and planes
- Change the label text font, size, and color
- Specify the number of decimal places
These tweaks make it easier to distinguish measurements in dense molecular environments or highlight specific dimensions in presentations.
A Time-Saver for Everyday Modeling
The Measure editor in SAMSON saves time and effort when you need to check molecular dimensions, and the ability to save and customize measurements helps document observations and communicate findings more clearly.
To explore more use cases and options, visit the full documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/measuring/
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.