When preparing a molecular animation or visualizing a docking scenario, one common challenge modelers face is illustrating the actual undocking process of ligands, proteins, or other structural components. Creating this visualization manually could take a significant amount of time and might lack consistency. That’s where SAMSON’s Undock animation comes in — a tool designed to make this process simple, efficient, and clear.
The Undock animation in SAMSON lets you animate the motion of atoms or meshes as they move away from their docked positions. It’s especially useful for anyone needing to present how a group of molecules departs from a receptor in molecular simulations, or simply to enhance the interpretability of a structural scenario.
Why Use Undock?
Undocking animations are often needed in:
- Drug discovery workflows – to simulate or present a ligand leaving a protein binding site
- Educational materials – to visually explain molecular interactions
- Scientific publications and presentations – to create clean and direct visualizations of undocking events
Manually animating such motion can lead to inconsistent results or require complex scripting in other platforms. SAMSON’s built-in Undock animation handles this automatically with just a few clicks.
How It Works
To get started with the Undock animation in SAMSON:
- Select nodes: First, select at least two structural nodes or meshes. The first node (or folder of nodes) will act as the receptor and remain static. The others will be the ones that undock.
- Apply the animation: Double-click on the Undock effect in the Animation panel within the Animator.
- Adjust timing: The motion happens between two keyframes. These can be moved along the animation timeline for precise control over timing.
- Tweak parameters: The amplitude of motion is computed automatically but can be changed using the Inspector. For smoother animations, customize the Easing curve.
This process allows you to quickly set up and adapt animations to show the undocking from different perspectives or with varying durations, depending on your presentation needs.
Smart Defaults and Flexibility
One of the helpful features is that if nothing is selected, SAMSON intelligently attempts to guess which nodes the animation should apply to. This can save time during rapid prototyping or when working with complex structures.
You also have the flexibility to change the parameters at any point. For example, if you create the animation and later decide the amplitude isn’t visually clear enough, simply use the Inspector to adjust it — no need to recreate the animation.
Visual Example
Below is a sample of how the undock animation can look in action:
Try It Out
The Undock animation is an approachable yet useful tool in SAMSON for scientists and educators who want to improve how they visualize molecular departure scenarios. It reduces the time needed to produce clear animations and makes molecular modeling presentations more dynamic and informative.
To learn more about the Undock animation and other related features such as Dock, Move Atoms, or Hold Atoms, visit the official documentation page here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/undock/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.