ncbi/icn3d

Ideas for improving the cartoon

ctrlcctrlv opened this issue · 6 comments

When chain label names* overlap in the 2D cartoon view, that looks ugly on SVG output:

image

It's not so hard to manually correct though:

_cartoon

My example image is setrusumab which I imported the PDB of from @oxpig's ABlooper. Sorry I don't have the experience to judge if that is actually a good representation of setrusumab. It looks like a SOST antibody to me but lol I have no degree.

If these could be improved it'd help illustrate Wikipedia a lot I imagine. What is the licensing, by the way, of screenshots of ICN3D?

  • I'm a programmer not a biologist sorry so I am very dangerous with a computer but not with a microscope so my terms might be all over the place.

(Correction : @brennanaba wrote ABlooper.)

Thanks for your suggestions. It's hard to arrange the labels automatically in iCn3D. So some manual adjustment might be required.

Anything in iCn3D has no license restriction except the commercial use of DelPhi electrostatic potential as stated at https://github.com/ncbi/icn3d/blob/master/LICENSE.md.

The output should be stable. The 2D cartoon of secondary structures in your example depend on the orientation of the 3D structure since the 3D objects are projected to a plane.

You can change the size of the labels, or move the helices/sheets around in the SVG view. The labels simply label the helices (H#) and sheets (S#) with the postfix of residue numbers. For example, "S100" means it's a beta sheet starting at the residue number 100.

Can I ask why you don't think it's a good representation? I made some art from it 😂
setrusumab

Thanks for all the advice by the way. I'm glad federal grants support software like this.