Chimera Sessions

A Chimera session (the state of Chimera during use) can be saved and restored. A session file consists of Python code that reconstitutes most aspects of Chimera by displaying data and performing other operations.

Molecular coordinate and sequence alignment data are included in the session file; however, volume data files must still be present to restart a session in which they were open. When a session with volume data is restarted, the user may be queried about file location(s) if the data or the session file have been moved since the session was saved.

Ways to save a session:

Ways to restart a session: A session may not restore correctly, or at all, in a version of Chimera older than that used to create the session. If a session includes a structure that has duplicate atom names within the same residue, it will not restore correctly.

Restoring a session creates a compiled version of the file (binary) with the same name except *.pyc instead of *.py. The binary speeds up session restoration and will be used (if present) even when the *.py file has been specified. Further, opening the *.pyc file directly will start the session even if the *.py file has been deleted. However, keeping the *.py file is recommended:

Merging Sessions

If models are already open when a session is being restored, the user will be asked whether the pre-existing models should be closed. If not, the sessions will be merged; data from the incoming session will be opened, but its environmental settings such as background color and effects will not be applied.

When sessions are merged, models in the incoming session will be assigned new ID numbers and transformed so that the model with the lowest ID in the incoming session will have the same transform as the pre-existing lowest-ID model. If these transformations are not as desired, they can be adjusted:

Regardless of whether pre-existing models are closed when a session is restored, any pre-existing 2D labels and color key will be removed, while pre-existing sequence alignments will be retained.

What Sessions Include

The following are saved in session files:

Not included:


UCSF Computer Graphics Laboratory / February 2013