When preparing molecular presentations that involve atom movement—whether you’re simulating docking, diffusion, or molecular assembly—it can be frustrating to lose track of how atoms moved during the animation. Fortunately, SAMSON includes a useful tool designed for exactly this task: the Record path animation effect.
Using Record path, you can automatically capture the trajectories of atoms that move during your animations. It’s especially powerful when used in combination with other animations like Assemble, Dock, or Move atoms. Instead of manually reconstructing what happened, Record path generates a track of atomic motion directly during playback.
How It Works
To start recording a trajectory, simply double-click the Record path effect in the Animation panel of the Animator. A keyframe is automatically placed at the current frame (you can always move it later). Then, when you play your animated sequence, the positions of atoms are recorded along the way.
A particularly helpful feature is the visual feedback SAMSON gives you during recording: segments of the track appear in either green or red. Green means the position at that frame has been successfully recorded. Red means no trajectory data was recorded—something to keep an eye on if results look incomplete.
Tips for Using It Efficiently
- Animations in SAMSON are executed from top to bottom in the Animator panel. Thus, place the Record path effect after the animation(s) whose path you want to capture.
- You can disable the recording temporarily to improve performance (useful during presentation construction). Simply right-click the animation in the Animator and select “Enable recording” to toggle it. Disabled animations are visibly darkened.
- You can move the Record path keyframes just like other animation frames—use that flexibility to align trajectory recording precisely with motion.
Exporting the Path
Once you’re satisfied with the recorded trajectory—that is, the entire animation segment is marked green—you can turn this into a distinct Path node in your model document. This lets you reuse or inspect the full motion independently of the animation.
You can export the path in two ways:
- Click Create path in the Inspector of the Record path animation.
- Or, right-click the Record path animation in the Animator and choose Create path.
From here, you can use this new path node for analysis or visualization, or even to guide further animations using the Play path and Play reverse path features.
Who This Helps
If you’re routinely creating molecular animations that involve complex motion—think docking simulations, folding processes, or anything that visually explains motion—Record path saves time and adds clarity. No need to guess where atoms went or manually reconstruct movement.
For more information, the full documentation page is available here.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.