Seeing that a number of people are using RasWin/RasMol I
thought that some of you may be interested in viewing the
graphics in stereo. I have only used the program on
Windows so I don't know if it would work with other
computer formats. I must admit, it is not the most
friendly way to view in stereo but in a pinch it can be
useful.
The way I do it is to open the progran two times so
that two different versions are running at the same time.
With the two programs running you can then open the same
graphic file; so, initially, you will have two windows open
showing exactly the same structure. You will need to
adjust the size of the windows so that each of the windows
is the same size. The idea is to make one image for each of
your eyes to look at. Before you start changing the viewing
angle for each of the structures, you should be able to
overlap the two images so that they become one. If this is
difficult, try downsizing the windows some more and moving
them closer together. Once you can overlap the images and
turn them into one you are ready to start changing the
viewing angle of the images. Since, to see in stereo, one
of your eyes views the image from a slightly different
angle than the other, one of the images must be rotates
slightly with respect to the other image. Depending on
whether you cross your eyes to overlap the images or make
each eye look straight ahead at each of the images you will
need to rotate the left hand image so the front of it moves
to the right or to the left respectively. You can
rotate the image easily using the mouse on the scroll
bar button below the graphic window or you can use the
command window to precisely rotate the image to the right
or to the left the number of degrees you want.
These images can also be printed, placed next to
eachother, and then viewed with the common stereo glasses
available with some text books.
Happy viewing.
John Marcus
