Creating compelling molecular animations can be surprisingly tedious, especially when presenting multi-component systems. A common challenge in structural bioinformatics and molecular modeling is illustrating how different components relate spatially in a complex supramolecular assembly. Whether it’s for teaching, a publication, or a conference presentation, viewers often need a way to see how parts fit together—and also how they come apart.
This is where the Disassemble animation in SAMSON comes in handy. It provides an automated, intuitive method for separating selected elements of a molecular system to help you highlight their organization, interfaces, or interactions.
What is Disassemble?
The Disassemble animation moves selected structural nodes or meshes from their current positions to computed final positions that are slightly spread out. This creates a visual effect where the molecular pieces appear to float apart, allowing the viewer to focus on each component individually. This can be especially useful when showcasing heteromeric complexes, membrane-associated proteins, or assemblies of different domains.
When & Why to Use Disassemble
This animation is especially valuable in the following cases:
- Explaining interfaces: Show how protein chains or subunits assemble and where contact surfaces lie.
- Educational resources: Make it easier for students to visually parse large biomolecular systems.
- Presenting model predictions: Reveal the organization of predicted complexes from docking tools or AlphaFold-Multimer results.
How to Use It
Follow these steps to add a Disassemble animation to your molecular system:
- Select the group of structural nodes or meshes you want to disassemble. If you don’t select anything, SAMSON will try to determine the applicable nodes automatically.
- Double-click on the
Disassembleanimation from the Animation panel in the Animator interface. - The selected parts will now be disassembled between two keyframes. You can move the keyframes to adjust the timing or duration of the effect.
- If you want to control the extent of movement, you can edit the amplitude by inspecting the animation properties.
- Modify interpolation using the easing curve to fine-tune the transition between frames.
It’s worth noting that although older versions of SAMSON included a dedicated Animation menu, all animation actions are now accessed via the Animation panel (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+7 / Cmd+7).
Seeing It in Action
Here’s an example of what the Disassemble animation looks like in SAMSON:
Simply adding this animation to your scenes can boost both clarity and impact. Instead of manually repositioning each element—which can be error-prone and visually unbalanced—you get a coherent, calculated dispersion that maintains the original structure’s integrity.
Want to Try It?
You can test this out in your own molecular documents or explore published examples on SAMSON Connect. For instance, the “1AVX – Orbit around assembly” document demonstrates a remarkably clear Disassemble-driven visualization.
To learn more, visit the full documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/disassemble/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.