If you’ve ever spent hours building a molecular model only to end up with a blurry, color-confusing visual that doesn’t quite communicate your findings, you’re not alone. For molecular modelers, visually conveying structure and interaction is often as important as the science itself. Good images are essential—whether for grants, papers, or teaching. Fortunately, SAMSON offers a powerful feature called Visual Presets that helps you present your models more clearly and quickly, without needing to fiddle around forever with settings.
The Visual Presets feature in SAMSON lets you switch between professionally designed visualization styles with just a few clicks. Whether you’re preparing a publication figure, trying to emphasize a binding site, or explaining molecular structure to students, you can instantly highlight what’s important in your scene.
What Are Visual Presets?
Visual Presets are pre-defined combinations of display settings—like colors, materials, lighting, and representations—designed to make specific types of molecular features stand out. For instance, you might use a preset that renders ribbons with subtle lighting and pastel colors for a clean look in education, or a high contrast one with glowing ligands for publications.
In SAMSON, you can apply a preset by opening the Visual Presets menu from the interface. From there, select the one that fits your need. It’s that simple. Some presets include:
- Standard publication: Cleaner surfaces and ribbons with high visibility for structures.
- Dark background: Ideal for presentations or web visuals, where bright molecules stand out against a dark canvas.
- Highlight ligand: Automatically dims everything else, making the ligand shine for better focus.
- Molecular surface: Emphasizes interactions and shape complementarity with transparency and shading settings.
Why Use Them?
Without presets, you’d need to adjust every visual element manually—a time sink when you’re on a deadline. Presets speed things up while maintaining professional standards. They also provide visual consistency when collaborating, since everyone can start from the same base.
It’s especially useful when switching between different types of work: say, looking at dynamics one moment, and preparing a figure the next. Instead of reconfiguring your display, just switch presets.
Can I Customize Them?
Yes. After applying a preset, you can always fine-tune visual aspects like lighting angle, color schemes, atom representation, and more. You might even save your own custom presets if you develop a style you frequently return to.
Final Thoughts
Visual Presets are a small but impactful tool that make your work clearer, faster to present, and easier to understand. Whether you’re teaching, publishing, or collaborating, they help make your molecules speak for themselves.
Visit the official documentation on Visual Presets in SAMSON to learn more.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.