Garlic Tutorial

Lesson 10 - The Semitransparent Plane

This lesson explains how to control the plane associated with the structure. More precisely, you will learn how to show, hide or move the plane and how to change the plane properties. The plane may be used to divide the structure in two parts, for selection and to model the cellular membrane.

It might be good idea to read the text about the command PLANE before you start with this lesson.

Step 1 - start garlic (if not started already):

garlic

Step 2 - load some the structure. In this lesson the papain structure is used, but you can use any other structure.

load 9PAP.pdb

Step 3 - make the plane visible:

pla

Now you should see an ellipsa which represents the plane. If you have not rotated the structure before making the plane visible, the ellipsa will be blue. The near edge will be bright, while the far edge will be dark.

Step 4 - rotate both the structure and the plane about x axis:

Hold the [shift] key and press 8 on numeric keypad.

Note the change of the ellipsa color: now you see another face of the plane. The blue face is treated as the upper side, while the orange-red face is treated as bottom side.

Step 5 - change the plane radius.

pla rad 20

Step 6 - Change the plane transparency (make it opaque):

pla tra 0

Step 7 - select all atoms above the plane:

sel above

Step 8 - change color for the current selection:

color cold

Step 9 - attach movement controls to the plane:

mov pla

Step 10 - rotate the plane, leaving the structure in its current orientation:

Use numeric keypad (keys 2, 8, 4 and 6) and modifier keys (shift, alt, control) to rotate the plane.

Step 11 - attach controls to both structure and plane:

mov all

Step 12 - hide the plane:

pla off

Step 13 - discard the structure:

dis all