SAMSON Blog – Page 216

Feeling Lost in Molecular Modeling Software? Try Learning by Doing

Many molecular modelers, whether beginners or experienced researchers switching to new tools, face a common challenge: getting started quickly and effectively. Dense documentation, unfamiliar interfaces, and unclear workflows often delay productivity and increase frustration. If this rings a bell, you’re…

Why Only One Editor Can Be Active in SAMSON—and Why That’s a Good Thing

OneAngstrom

If you’ve used SAMSON to design or manipulate molecular models, you’ve likely come across the concept of editors. These tools power an essential aspect of your modeling experience: they make things happen when you interact with atoms, molecules, or entire…

Why Your SAMSON Extension Won’t Load (And How to Fix It)

OneAngstrom

If you’ve built a SAMSON Extension and it suddenly won’t load when you start SAMSON, you’re not alone. One of the most common issues developers and users stumble upon is version incompatibility between the Extension and the SAMSON SDK. It…

Avoid Pathway Artifacts: How to Properly Set Up Your Protein System in SAMSON

OneAngstrom

One of the most common sources of error when exploring conformational transitions in proteins is an incorrectly prepared system. Structural inconsistencies, missing atoms, or mismatched residue numbering can not only cause software crashes but generate misleading results when modeling pathways.…

Making Selections Work for You: Filtering Render Presets in SAMSON with NSL

OneAngstrom

When working in molecular design and visualization, it’s easy to accumulate multiple render presets while experimenting with colors, styles, and representations. But what if you’re revisiting a project weeks later—or collaborating with others—and need to quickly find a specific render…

Selecting Atoms by Geometry in SAMSON

OneAngstrom

In molecular modeling, selecting the right set of atoms can be the difference between getting a meaningful result and spending hours troubleshooting. One common requirement is to select atoms based on their molecular geometry—for example, tetrahedral or trigonal planar geometries.…

Avoiding Equilibration Errors in GROMACS Wizard: How to Handle Input Files in NPT Equilibration

OneAngstrom

When preparing molecular dynamics simulations, one of the most common sources of confusion is choosing the correct input for each stage of the simulation pipeline. This is especially true when transitioning between the NVT and NPT equilibration steps. If the…

A Better Way to Select and Color Residues Interactively

OneAngstrom

Molecular modeling often involves navigating between abstract representations, such as sequences, and the tangible three-dimensional structures they correspond to. This can be disjointed: selecting residues in a sequence viewer may not reflect immediately in your 3D modeler, or vice versa.…

Why Fixed Topology Simulations Can Be Frustrating — And How IM-UFF Lets You Go Beyond

OneAngstrom

Editing molecular systems during a simulation is something many computational chemists and structural biologists wish they could do more freely. Unfortunately, traditional force fields assume fixed topologies, making dynamic changes — like the formation or breaking of covalent bonds —…

How to Find Protein Conformational Transition Paths with Active Atom Selection

OneAngstrom

When modeling conformational changes in proteins, one of the most common challenges is finding plausible transition pathways between different conformations. It’s especially valuable when you have experimentally resolved structures representing both the start and goal conformations, but no information on…