If you’ve ever worked on complex biomolecular systems in a dynamic context, you know that managing animations can be tedious. Whether you’re preparing a molecular movie or exploring simulation results, organizing and selecting the right animation elements matters. Fortunately, SAMSON’s Node Specification Language (NSL) supports this through its dedicated animation attribute space (an), streamlining how you control and query animation nodes.
This blog post helps simplify your animation workflows in SAMSON by highlighting the key animation attributes defined in the an space — and how you can use them effectively. Whether you’re searching for a hidden transition or trying to isolate animations of interest, these attributes can help reduce the noise and keep you focused.
Match Only What Matters
The animation attribute space exclusively targets animation nodes. This is helpful when your document contains many node types — for example, atoms, molecules, and cameras — but you’re only interested in filtering or adjusting animations.
Here’s a quick reference to useful attributes in the an space:
| Attribute | Short Name | Values | Example Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
hidden |
h |
true, false | an.h, not an.h |
name |
n |
String in quotes | an.n "Twist", an.n "A*" |
selected |
true, false | an.selected, not an.selected |
|
selectionFlag |
sf |
true, false | an.sf false |
visibilityFlag |
vf |
true, false | an.vf, an.vf false |
visible |
v |
true, false | an.v, not an.v |
Use Case: Selecting Only Visible Animation Nodes Named ‘A*’
Let’s say you’ve created numerous animations during a conformational analysis session, and now you want to isolate only those that:
- Are visible
- Have names starting with ‘A’
You could use the following NSL query:
|
1 |
an.v and an.n "A*" |
This powerful shortcut immediately filters out all extraneous content so you can focus on exactly what you need to visualize or export. No more clicking through menus trying to deselect hundreds of unused transitions.
A Note on Inheritance
All these attributes are inherited from the general node attribute space. For example, an.h is simply the hidden attribute of an animation node. However, some differences exist: for instance, while general selected attributes can use the short name s, this shorthand is not available in the animation context.
Clean Queries, Better Results
Knowing which attributes you can use — and combining them smartly — turns animation filtering into a fast, precise operation. Whether you’re scripting complex visualization workflows or just trying to untangle what’s going on in a large model, the an attribute space will save time and reduce friction.
To explore all animation-specific attributes and examples, visit the full documentation page here.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.