If you’ve ever felt like your molecular presentations look a bit static or lifeless, you’re not alone. Many molecular modelers and educators wish they had better ways to visually showcase the 3D nature of molecular structures without spending hours editing videos or animations manually. One helpful and often overlooked feature in SAMSON, the integrative molecular design platform, is the Rotate animation. This simple tool gives your molecular group a clean, centered rotation around its geometric center, making your presentations more dynamic and insightful.
The Rotate animation is useful when you want viewers to appreciate the spatial arrangement of atoms or the overall geometry of a molecular complex. It’s especially helpful for macromolecules, ligands within binding pockets, nanotubes, and symmetric assemblies where static views don’t do justice to their 3D nature.
Why Use Rotation?
Rotation isn’t just cosmetic. It helps convey depth and connectivity, highlights symmetrical properties, and ensures that atomic arrangements are easier to comprehend when teaching or presenting. Adding motion can also help spot steric interactions and spatial clashes when assessing molecular placements.
How It Works
The Rotate animation spins a group of selected particles around their centroid (geometric center), using the Z-axis as the rotation axis. This is particularly useful because the rotation feels stable and centered, without the awkward circumvolutions that can happen when spinning around arbitrary axes.
Step-By-Step
- Select the group of particles (atoms, residues, or objects) you want to rotate. This is done using any of the usual selection methods in SAMSON.
- Open the Animator and locate the Animation panel.
- Double-click on the Rotate animation effect.
- The system places the animation between two keyframes. You can adjust the duration and position of keyframes to control how fast and when the rotation happens.
- Use the easing curve (found in the Animation panel) to control the acceleration or deceleration of the rotation.
Good To Know
- You can move the keyframes at any time to refine the timing of your animation.
- Even though older tutorials reference the “Animation menu,” the current version of SAMSON has moved all animation tools into the Animator’s panels, making things easier to find.
Pro Tip
Combine the Rotate animation with the Move atoms or Hold atoms animations to simulate rigid-body motion or transformations between conformations. When used together effectively, these basic animations can bring your molecular designs to life, helping viewers understand spatial concepts more intuitively.
To learn more, visit the original documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/rotate/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.