Difference of "turn" and "rotate" Commands

Molecule Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟PyMol GUI and CLI

∟Difference of "turn" and "rotate" Commands

This section provides a quick introduction on the differences of 'turn' command and 'rotate' command in PyMol.

Both "turn" and "rotate" commands can be used to change the final visualization of the molecule structure. But they work differently:

"turn" Command - Changes the camera location by turning it about the x-axis, y-axis or z-axis in camera space. This command will change the rotation transformation matrix in viewing parameters, and actually rotate the camera space.

Basically, the "turn" command is not changing atom locations in the model space. It is only changing the camera viewing direction to a new angle in the camera space.

The "turn" command is equivalent the rotate action with mouse buttons.

Examples of "turn" commands:

# turning camera 90 degrees about z-axis
turn z, 90

# turning camera 45 degrees about y-axis
turn y, 45

"rotate" Command - Changes atom locations by turning them about the x-axis, y-axis or z-axis in the model space. This command will not change any viewing parameters.

Since atom locations are changes, the molecule structure is technically changed by the "rotate" command.

Examples of "rotate" commands:

# rotating molecule atom locations 90 degrees about z-axis
rotate z, 90

# rotating molecule atom locations 45 degrees about y-axis
rotate y, 45

Conclusion: don't use "rotate" command, if you don't want to modify the molecule object. Use "turn" command only.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Introduction of Molecules

Molecule Names and Identifications

Molecule Mass and Weight

Protein and Amino Acid

Nucleobase, Nucleoside, Nucleotide, DNA and RNA

Gene and Chromosome

Protein Kinase (PK)

SDF (Structure Data File)

PyMol Installation

►PyMol GUI and CLI

PyMol Screen Layout

Load Molecule from File into PyMol

Virtual Trackball Rotation on PyMol

Zoom In and Out on PyMol

PyMol Command Line Interface

"load" and "delete" Commands on PyMol

"log_open" and "log_close" Commands on PyMol

Model Space and Camera Space on PyMol

"get_view" and "set_view" on PyMol

View Parameters Auto Adjusted on PyMol

Zoom In/Out by Moving Camera

Rotation with Transformation Matrix

Rotation with "turn" Command

►Difference of "turn" and "rotate" Commands

Difference of "move" and "translate" Commands

"center", "zoom" and "reset" Commands

Model-to-Camera Space Coordinates Mapping

Camera-to-Model Space Coordinates Mapping

Turn Structure around Camera

"show lines" Presentation Command

"show sticks" Presentation Command

"show spheres" Presentation Command

"show surface" Presentation Command

"show mesh" Presentation Command

PyMol Selections

PyMol Editing Functions

PyMol Measurement Functions

PyMol Movie Functions

PyMol Python Integration

PyMol Object Functions

ChEMBL Database - European Molecular Biology Laboratory

PubChem Database - National Library of Medicine

PDB (Protein Data Bank)

INSDC (International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration)

HGNC (HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee)

Relocated Tutorials

Resources and Tools

Molecule Related Terminologies

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