Re: [PyMOL] exporting surfaces

[C W. <cw...@ua...>]

> Subject: [PyMOL] exporting surfaces
>
> Dear Pymol users,
>
> Does anyone know if there is a way to export surfaces into a file format
> suitable for import into 3D modellers (ie. Blender, 3DSMax, Lightwave, etc)?
> For that matter, is it possible at all to export anything in pymol?

Hi Peter,

I wrote a cheap hack a while back to produce STL output for the 
Connolly surfaces in pymol to help send some models to a 3D printer.
Please see these previous messages for a 'patch' and some pictures:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=5856368
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=5933822

We have some 3D printer users in our Biochemistry department that
still use this hack to get their models out of pymol.

I am also a blender developer (I'm supposed to work on the animation
tools, but I also occasionally add features to help with my work).
I added native STL import/export to blender a few versions ago... so
this might be one way to get your models into blender. The only problem
with this is that the STL format does not have support for colors,
so this is only a good solution if you are solely interested in
the shape of your surfaces. I think my 'patch' could easily be 
modified a bit to create a user-crufted file format for exporting the
colors with the geometry, and then python scripting in blender 
could be used to read this format (as Scott alluded to). This is the 
approach I use to get models out of VTK and into blender.

Regards,
Chris

Chris Want
Research Computing Support
Computing & Network Services
University of Alberta
Tel: 1-780-492-9418