Visualizing molecular trajectories is essential for understanding complex behaviors such as conformational changes, docking events, or transitions between molecular states. But synchronizing multiple paths or smoothly animating a recorded trajectory can be challenging—especially when the number of frames doesn’t match your animation timeline.
This is where the Play path animation effect in SAMSON comes into play. It’s a tool that lets you animate a molecular path—such as a recorded simulation or interpolated transition—between two keyframes. Whether you’re working with a single structure or multiple synchronized trajectories, this feature simplifies the process of creating smooth, informative animations.
What Problem Does It Solve?
Molecular modelers often deal with trajectory data that isn’t perfectly aligned with their desired frame count or timing. For example, you might have a 30-frame trajectory but want to include it in a 100-frame animation. ‘Play path’ solves this by smoothly interpolating between frames—even allowing for synchronization of multiple paths when selected simultaneously.
But here’s what makes it particularly useful: you can turn off frame smoothing in the Inspector when needed. This means whether you’re aiming for an accurate step-by-step view or a visually appealing smooth transition, you have control over how the path is presented.
How To Use ‘Play Path’
- Select a path node that stores your desired trajectory. This could be the result of a simulation, a manually built transition, or any recorded path in your model.
- Open the Animator and double-click on the Play path option in the Animation panel.
- The entire path will be mapped between two keyframes. You can then move the keyframes to control the duration of the animation segment.
- Adjust the interpolation style using the Easing curve function to refine how the transition behaves visually.
This simple workflow enables you to quickly create and control animations of molecular motion, whether you’re visualizing energy minimization steps, observing ligand motions, or studying protein folding paths.
More Than Just a Single Path
One of the strengths of this feature is support for multiple paths. You can synchronize and animate several trajectory segments simultaneously—very helpful for comparing different molecular pathways or displaying multi-component dynamics.
Customize Your Playback
Need to fine-tune how your animation plays out? Head over to the Inspector panel. Here, you’ll find options for enabling or disabling path smoothing, choosing interpolation methods, and tweaking playback speed using easing curves.
These controls can make a big difference in how molecules appear to move—especially when presenting your results to an audience or analyzing specific interactions frame-by-frame.
Conclusion
If you’re a molecular modeler looking to visualize conformational transitions, animate reaction paths, or simply bring your simulations to life, the ‘Play path’ animation offers an intuitive and flexible solution.
Learn more about the Play path animation in the official SAMSON documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.