The Viewing Tool

The Viewing Tool has five sections shown as index cards, Camera, Effects, Rotation, Side View, and Lighting. Only one card is shown at a time, and clicking the tab for another brings it to the front.

For just the section being shown: Reset replaces the current settings with the original “factory” defaults, Restore replaces the current settings with those previously saved in the preferences file, and Save saves the current settings to the preferences file. Close dismisses the Viewing Tool, and Help opens this manual page in a browser window.

Camera

The Camera section of the Viewing Tool controls several aspects of the view, including stereo parameters. There are several ways to start Camera, a tool in the Viewing Controls category. Default settings are indicated in bold. See also: stereo, set projection

The horizontal field of view, eye separation, and position of the focal plane relative to the items in view can be changed interactively using the Top View.

Effects

The Effects section of the Viewing Tool controls visual effects such as depth cueing. There are several ways to start Effects, a tool in the Viewing Controls category. Default settings are indicated in bold. See also: set, background

Rotation

The Rotation section of the Viewing Tool controls rotation behavior. There are several ways to start Rotation, a tool in the Movement category. See also: cofr, focus, set independent, Set Pivot and Focus in the Actions menu

Side View

Side View

The Side View section of the Viewing Tool provides a convenient and intuitive way to scale the view and to control clipping. There are several ways to start the Side View, a tool in the Viewing Controls category.

Simultaneously holding down the Shift key reduces the speed (mouse sensitivity) of dragging operations by a factor of 10.

The Clip checkbox indicates global clipping status (on or off). Surface capping... brings up the Surface Capping dialog for controlling the appearance of planar caps where surfaces are sliced away.

Clicking View All turns off global clipping and adjusts the scale to include everything that is displayed. Model rotations and translations are not adjusted.

The default Side is right: it shows the relationship between the viewer and the Chimera scene from the viewer's right side. Setting View to top switches to a top view in which stereo parameters and perspective can be adjusted interactively.

Lighting

The Lighting section of the Viewing Tool allows lighting parameters to be changed and saved. There are several ways to start Lighting, a tool in the Viewing Controls category. See also: lighting, lighting details

Lighting includes two sections:

Settings in Lighting collectively define a scheme or style that can be named, saved, and later retrieved from the pulldown list marked with a black triangle in the Lighting Settings area. Choosing a style from the list automatically applies it. When the name Chimera default is shown, it is only possible to save to a different name, using Save As.... When another name is shown, it is possible to Named lighting styles are saved in the Chimera preferences file, and are only updated with any changes when Save, Save As..., or Delete is used. The settings in effect when a session is saved (whether or not the style has a name) are included in the session file. A lighting style can also be saved, applied, or deleted with the lighting command.

The Intensity section includes:

Shininess

The Shininess interface controls the specular parameters of the viewed objects (rather than the light sources). Although part of the Lighting tool, Shininess is also handled as a separate tool in the Viewing Controls category. See also: lighting, lighting details

The Shininess interface adjusts the material properties of the Chimera default material. Stick, ball-and-stick, sphere, and ribbon representations and molecular surfaces use the default material. It is not possible to independently control the shininess of different models that use the default material. Except for surfaces generated by Volume Viewer and Multiscale Models (for which special code was written), the properties of models that do not use the default material (VRML models, for example) are not adjusted.


UCSF Computer Graphics Laboratory / January 2012