If you work with complex molecular systems, you’ve probably faced moments when communicating your results feels harder than generating them. Detailed atomic models are scientifically rich, but also visually overwhelming — especially when trying to present findings to interdisciplinary teams or in educational settings.
In SAMSON, Visual Presets offer a way to solve this common challenge, giving you fast and coherent control over how molecular structures are visually represented. They can make your work not just clearer, but more efficient.
What Are Visual Presets?
Visual Presets in SAMSON are predefined combinations of rendering settings for atoms, bonds, ribbons, electron densities, and more. Instead of setting parameters individually every time you start a new project or edit an existing one, you can apply a visual preset that aligns with your intended use (e.g., publication, teaching, or exploration) in just a few clicks.
Why You Should Use Them
- Consistency: Apply the same visual standard across different documents or projects.
- Time-saving: Avoid most of the repetitive work when preparing molecular scenes.
- Accessibility: Choose visual clarity so that even those unfamiliar with molecular modeling can understand what they’re looking at.
Use Case Example: From Research to Presentation
Let’s say you’re simulating a ligand binding event. During exploration, you may want a Simple preset that prioritizes interaction clarity by showing only the binding pocket in ribbon style and the ligand in ball-and-stick form. Later, when preparing a figure for publication, you might switch to the Publication preset which emphasizes surface rendering, subtle transparency, and color balance for higher visual appeal.
Teaching a class? Switch to an Educational visual preset that highlights secondary structures with distinct color codes and simplified atom representations, reducing visual noise for students.
How to Apply a Visual Preset
- Open your molecular document in SAMSON.
- From the top menu, go to
Visual > Visual Presets. - Choose from presets like Default, Exploration, Presentation, and more.
The selected preset is instantly applied to your current scene.
Customizing Visual Presets
While SAMSON provides default presets, you can create your own too. After manually setting your preferred visual settings, you can save them as a new preset so that it’s always accessible in future modeling sessions. This is particularly useful for labs or teams wanting to standardize visualization across members.
When Visuals Make a Difference
Whether you’re preparing a poster, a figure for a journal, or a video demo for stakeholders, choosing the right visualization is crucial — and simpler than ever with SAMSON’s Visual Presets. They’re not just about aesthetics: they help you communicate science more effectively.
To learn more, visit the Visual Presets documentation page or browse the full SAMSON Reference Guide.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.