Surfaces Preferences

These options set the default appearance for new surfaces, which includes surfaces created directly in Maestro, and surfaces created on import of volume data into Maestro that have no information on appearance settings.

Style options

Choose between Solid, Mesh, and Dot for the default surface style. Only Solid is affected by the value of Transparency. Mesh and Dot are always drawn fully opaque. The default style is not applied to surfaces that have a predefined style (such as PrimeX and SiteMap).

Transparency boxes and link button

Set the default transparency of the front surface and the back surface in the text boxes. You can link the two so that they are synchronized, by clicking the link button to the right of the boxes.

Color scheme option menu

This option menu allows you to choose a default color scheme for new surfaces. You can choose a constant color, and use the color button to the right to set the color, or you can choose one of a number of property-based color schemes.

Other surface colors, by surface type color buttons

Set the default colors for paired surfaces and electron density maps, by clicking the color buttons and choosing a new color. Paired surfaces are those whose volumes have both positive and negative values, such as molecular orbitals, and two surfaces are generated with the same isovalue, one for positive values and one for negative values. The remaining surface types are for representation of electron density maps in PrimeX.

These settings control some aspects of the appearance or behavior of surfaces.

Mesh width options

Select an option for the width of the lines in the mesh representation of the surface.

• Scaled—When zooming in and out, selecting this option allows the width of the lines in the mesh representation to be scaled appropriately. The Min and Max text boxes specify the minimum and maximum scaling factor that should be used for the mesh. The scaling factor is applied to the mesh width set for the Constant option.

• Constant—Set the width in pixels of the lines in the mesh representation of the surface. The width does not change with the zoom level. Scaling of the mesh width is applied to this value.

Angle-dependent transparency option

Vary the transparency of transparent surfaces according to the surface normal, from maximum transparency when the surface normal is perpendicular to the screen, to opaque when the surface normal is parallel to the screen. The maximum is affected by the transparency slider in the Surface Display Options Dialog Box. This option is only present when the OpenGL level is 2.1 (see Graphics settings), as this level is required for the rendering.

Darken colors by cavity depth option and intensity text box

Darken the shade of the color used for a surface by its depth relative to a smooth surface. You can specify the intensity of the darkening effect, on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0, in the intensity text box, where 1.0 applies the full effect, and 0.0 is equivalent to turning off the effect. Setting this value is useful when the cavities are deep.