How to Quickly Control Visibility of Animation Nodes in SAMSON

In molecular modeling, animation allows researchers to visualize transitions, dynamics, or structural variations over time. But as these animations grow complex, managing visibility within molecular environments becomes a tedious task—especially when working with hundreds of nodes simultaneously.

That’s where SAMSON’s Node Specification Language (NSL) can help. Using animation attributes in NSL, you can filter and control visibility directly from the command interface, without needing to manually check or uncheck options in the GUI. This post focuses on a subset of these animation-specific attributes related to visibility control.

Why Visibility Control Matters

Molecular animations can include complex mechanisms, conformational changes, or protein-ligand interactions. To focus on specific events or streamline visualization, you may need to:

  • Hide or show selected nodes.
  • Export only visible frames for publication.
  • Reduce clutter and enhance focus by toggling particular elements.

Accessible Attributes for Visibility

The animation attribute space (short name an) lets you target only animation nodes. It’s designed to plug easily into your filtering and scripting workflows. Here are the key visibility-related attributes:

an.hidden (an.h)

This attribute checks whether an animation node is hidden. For example:

  • an.h — matches hidden animation nodes.
  • not an.h — matches visible ones.

an.visible (an.v)

This attribute works similarly to an.hidden but directly asks for visibility:

  • an.v — matches visible animation nodes.
  • not an.v — matches hidden ones.

Even though this might feel redundant, having both options can be useful depending on how you structure your NSL queries.

an.visibilityFlag (an.vf)

This flag controls whether a node is intended to be visible. It’s particularly effective when automating visibility toggles:

  • an.vf — matches nodes with visibilityFlag = true.
  • an.vf false — matches nodes where visibility is explicitly turned off.

Practical Use Cases

Here are some examples of how this can help:

  • Isolate events: Use an.v to isolate and render only visually-relevant steps in your simulation.
  • Batch control: Use NSL scripting to toggle visibility for dozens of animation nodes using a single command.
  • Debug display: Identify all hidden nodes with an.h to review what part of the animation is currently not contributing to the visualization.

Small Features, Big Impact

Tuning visibility settings from the NSL reduces friction and repetitive GUI actions. This is especially useful for advanced users working in large systems or preparing visuals for presentations and papers.

To explore more about node attributes for animations, visit the full documentation page for Animation Attributes in NSL.

SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON from https://www.samson-connect.net.

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