Hi Marty, Sorry if this misses your point, but it is possible to translate molecules independantly in pymol:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=11658301 However, that won¹t help if you want to show overlap. To do this, you would have to repeatedly call translate and distance over a particular vector: def translateAndMeasure(selection, other, translationVector, cutoff): cmd.translate(translationVector, selection) return checkDistances(selection, other, cutoff) def checkDistances(moleculeA, moleculeB, cutoff): ids_A = getIds(moleculeA) ids_B = getIds(moleculeB) for idA in ids_A: for idB in idsB: d = distance(moleculeA, idA, moleculeB, idB) if d > cutoff: return "overlap" return "no overlap" def distance(a, idA, b, idB): atomA = "%s and id %s" % (a, idA) atomB = "%s and id %s" % (b, idB) return cmd.get_distance(atomA, atomB) def getIds(selection): my_dict = { 'my_list' : [] } cmd.iterate(selection, "my_list.append(ID)", space=my_dict) return my_dict['my_list'] to use, you would call it like : print translateAndMeasure("molA", "molB", [1,0,0], 4) which would print "overlap" if any of the atoms in molA or molB were within 4 Angstrom after translating by 1 along X. Of course, this could be improved to report exactly /which/ atoms were overlapping, or to make distance objects (using cmd.distance) to show them. Also, it is entirely possible that there is a way to do this more easily in pymol that I missed :) gilleain torrance On 12/6/05 20:00, "Marty Taylor" <mstay...@princeton.edu> wrote: > Hello, > > I am looking for a tool to help me build structural models of protein-protein > interactions. Does anyone know of any software that can both visualize and > move around large molecules? Even better, ones that will tell me (or show me!) > when atomic radii start to overlap? > > Currently I am holding one molecule still and doing a series of translations > by hand of the other, then visualizing in PyMOL, then translating again, and > it is very difficult to make any progress. > > thanks in advance! > > Marty Taylor > Department of Chemical Engineering > Princeton University > mstay...@princeton.edu