One of the most common frustrations when visualizing molecular systems is the repetitive and time-consuming process of manually applying visual styles and color schemes. Whether you’re preparing figures for a presentation, teaching structural biology, or analyzing large biomolecular complexes, you’ve likely found yourself clicking through endless menu options to get your models to look just right.
If that resonates with you, there’s some good news: SAMSON provides a streamlined solution with Visual Presets.
What are Visual Presets?
Visual Presets in SAMSON are pre-configured, ready-to-use styles that can be applied to molecular systems with a few clicks. These presets bundle together visual models (like ribbons, van der Waals surfaces) and color schemes based on selectors like chain ID or residue index. Instead of assigning these visual styles one by one, you can apply several at once—instantly.
For example, applying the Protein-ligand preset automatically sets up a commonly used representation used in structural biology to distinguish between proteins and ligands.
Applying a Visual Preset
Here’s how you can quickly apply a Visual Preset in SAMSON:
- Start from the main menu.
- Go to Visualization > Visual preset.
- Select one of the available presets, like Protein-ligand, Illustrate…, or others.
That’s it. The preset configures your visual models and color schemes for you—no manual tweaking required.
Customizing and Saving Your Own Presets
While SAMSON comes with a useful set of default presets, you can also create and save your own. This is especially helpful if your research or teaching workflow involves specific visualization conventions. Just modify an existing preset, and use Visualization > Visual preset > Create to save it for future use.
You can learn more about this in the official documentation’s Visual Presets section, which explains how to apply, create, and customize presets in detail.
The Illustrative Style
One particularly notable preset is the Illustrative preset. Inspired by David S. Goodsell’s Molecule of the Month from the RCSB PDB, it renders biomolecular systems with a sketch-like feel—ideal for publications or educational materials.
You can enable this by selecting Visualization > Presets > Illustrative.
Takeaway
Whether you’re a structural biologist, a computational chemist, or a student, using Visual Presets in SAMSON can dramatically reduce the time you spend setting up representations—and help your molecules look more informative and polished.
To learn more and explore other visualization features in SAMSON, visit the full documentation section here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/visualizing/.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON here.