********************************************* * * * CONSCRIPT * * A program for generating electron density * * isosurfaces for display in Molscript * * * ********************************************* by Michael Lawrence, Biomolecular Research Institute, 343 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia. email: mike.lawrence@bioresi.com.au & Paul Bourke, Department of Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne Univeristy of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia. Introduction ------------ CONSCRIPT generates electron density isosurfaces from CCP4 / X-PLOR / CNS electron density maps suitable for display in MOLSCRIPT (Kraulis, 1991). Conditions of use are detailed in the accompanying README file. Input ----- Input to CONSCRIPT is via keyworded commands provided on the standard input stream. All commands are compulsory unless indicated otherwise. MAPFILE <input-map-file-name> provides the name of the electron density map file from which the surfaces is to be generated. Map sampling should be on a fine grid for best results. MAPTYPE < CCP4 | XPLU | XPLF > defines the type of map file being provided: CCP4: - standard CCP4 map XPLU: - unformatted map produced by X-PLOR or CNS XPLF: - formatted map produced by X-PLOR or CNS OBJECT < output-object-file-name > provides the name of the output file containing the triangulated isosurface. CENTRE <x> <y> <z> defines the coordinates of the centre of the volume within the map which is considered for surface generation. These coordinates are provided in orthogonal Angstroms. BOX <nu> <nv> <nw> defines the size of the volume within the map which is considered for surface generation. These sizes are provided in grid units along the fast, medium and slow axes. It is usually not necessary to fine tune these numbers, as final clipping of the rendered volume can be done within MOLSCRIPT. If the box provided extends beyond the map volume, it is truncated back to the map boundaries. CONTOUR <rho> defines the electron density level of the isosurface. <SURFACE | CHICKEN> defines the type of surface to be generated, either triangulated or standard chicken-wire representation. GOURAUD (optional) implements Gouraud shading of triangulated surfaces. INVERT (optional) inverts the direction of all surface normals. i.e. interchanges back and front face. Memory allocation ----------------- CONSCRIPT allocates memory dynamically. As CONSCRIPT cannot calculate in advance the number of vertices that will be passed to the sort routine required for Gouraud shading, it may be necessary to increase the allocation via the environment variable CONVERT, e.g. setenv CONVERT 1000000 The program will alert the user to the need to increase CONVERT. Output ------ the output file can be read directly into MOLSCRIPT as an object file using the following command within MOLSCRIPT: object < filename > ; Example of isosurface generation via CONSCRIPT, MOLSCRIPT and Raster3D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Generate a Gouraud-shaded surface from X-plor unformatted map file: conscript << EOF mapfile /tmp/2fofc.map maptype XPLU object mymol.surface centre 29. 17. 62. box 70 70 70 contour 1.2 surface gouraud EOF 2. Pipe this to MOLSCRIPT: molscript -r << EOF > picture.render plot window 11.; slab 11.; read mol "mymol.pdb"; transform atom * by centre 26.275 18.090 62.623 ; set colourparts off ; set coilradius 0.3 ; set atomcolour atom C* green ; set atomcolour atom C** green ; set planecolour white ; ball-and-stick require sphere 0. 0. 0. 15. and not atom H* ; set transparency 0.6; set planecolour rgb 1. 0.7 0.2 ; object mymol.surface ; end_plot EOF 3. Unfortunately the following has to be done manually: Insert the following backface command manually into file picture.render immediately before the Type 1 and 7 records decribing the the triangulated surface : 8 15 -1 1 1 1 0.6 1 0 0 1 BACKFACE 1. 0.2 0.01 0 0 NB: remove the original Type 8 record inserted by MOLSCRIPT. The colours etc. set here are chosen to blend with those given in MOLSCRIPT input file, the user is of course free to choose his/her own colours. 4. Run Raster3D program render: render -sgi output.rgb < picture.render 5. Enjoy the picture!! Note ---- The colour scheme for the isosurface, its level of transparency, its lighting options as well as the distinguishing between front and back faces have to be done within MOLSCRIPT and/or Raster3D. They are not controlled by CONSCRIPT. Known Bugs ---------- There are some bugs which have yet to be resolved. 1. If the electron density map is not finely sampled some small triangles viewed nearly edge-on in the final output may be coloured in the BACKFACE colour rather than the frontface colour. No fix is currently available for this problem, I suspect it a result of the way in which the Gouraud shading is implemented. 2. The convention for front and back face appears to differ between the GL and Raster3d output forms of MOLSCRIPT. Use the INVERT command in CONSCRIPT to get this right.