Molecular modeling often involves dynamic processes: ligand docking, molecular dynamics, or interactive manipulation of atomic structures during presentations. But reproducing or analyzing these movements later can become a pain, especially if you didn’t capture the atomic trajectory at the time. Fortunately, SAMSON provides a practical solution with the Record path animation — a tool that allows modelers to record atomic positions throughout a molecular presentation and export them as a path.
Whether you’re preparing a series of coordinated animations or simply want to analyze how atomic positions evolve in time, Record path helps ensure you don’t lose valuable movement data.
Why record atomic paths?
Animations in molecular presentations are more than just visuals — they carry information. During a docking process or a simulation, being able to go back and examine how atoms moved makes a real impact in teaching, research communication, or even debugging molecular assemblies. But without an accurate record, recreating those motions means repeating complex animations. The Record path effect solves that by adding a track that captures the atomic trajectories.
How it works
Add the Record path animation from the Animation Panel by double-clicking it. This places a keyframe at the current frame in the timeline. Crucially, make sure to place this track after other animations that move atoms (such as Assemble, Dock, or Simulate), since animations are executed top-down in SAMSON’s Animator.
As your animation plays, the system records positions: green segments indicate successful recordings, while red segments mean data is missing or invalid.
Performance and flexibility
Path recording can be enabled or disabled for performance reasons. While you’re designing a presentation and repeatedly adjusting atomic positions, you might want recording turned off. You can toggle this either from the Inspector or by right-clicking the animation in the Animator and selecting Enable recording. If recording is disabled, the animation controller appears darkened.
Export and reuse recorded paths
Once satisfied with your animation and path recording (i.e., all segments are green), you can export the path to a dedicated node in your document. You have two options:
- Click Create path in the Inspector.
- Right-click the Record path animation in the Animator and choose Create path.
This generates a reusable path that can be visualized again, reversed, or used in subsequent animations, such as with Play path or Play reverse path.
A simple practice to avoid rework
Path recording is one of those features you may not know you need until it’s too late. It helps molecular modelers preserve the results of intricate animations and save time when building or sharing scientific visualizations. Simply enabling the Record path animation upfront can save hours of rework later.
To learn more about how Record path works in SAMSON, visit the official documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.