4. Mouse, keyboard and joystick
The mouse can be used to manage the 3D objects
trough rotation, translation and scale operations, changing the mouse mode with the
context menu and/or the M hotkey (see hotkeys section). To change a 3D property,
you must drag the mouse from left to right and vice versa pressing the left mouse button.
To apply a Z transformation (rotation or translation), you must drag the mouse holding the
middle button or the left button and the shift key at the same time. The mouse wheel, if
present, has some functions on the basis of the current mouse mode: it can rotate around Y
axis, translate along the Z axis and zoom. To change the mouse settings, see the
configuration of the human interface devices (HID).
In the main window, you can select some functions with the context menu, pressing the
right mouse button:
Item | Subitem | CmdName | Description |
Mouse mode
|
Rotate | mMouseRotate |
Switch the mouse into the rotation mode. |
Translate | mMouseTrans |
Switch the mouse into the translation mode. |
|
Scale | mMouseScale |
Switch the mouse into the scaling mode. |
|
Move | All | mMoveAll |
Connect the mouse and the 3D controls to the world |
Molecule | mMoveMol |
Connect the mouse and the 3D controls to a specified molecule or segment or residue. Holding down the Control key, it's possible to switch temporally from the specified object to the world. |
|
Segment | mMoveSeg | ||
Residue | mMoveRes | ||
Measure | Reset picking | mPickReset |
Restart the atom selection from the beginning. |
Remove monitors | mPickRemMon |
Remove all monitors. |
|
None | mPickNone |
With these items, you
can enable/disable the mouse atom picking in order to change the rotation
center and/or to show the atom information and/or
perform a measure between 2 (distance), 3 (angle), 4 (torsion) and 6 atoms (angle between
two planes). The result of each pick/measure operation is shown in the
console window. |
|
Atom | mPickAtom | ||
Center | mPickCenter | ||
Distance | mPickDistance | ||
Angle | mPickAngle | ||
Torsion | mPickTorsion | ||
Plane angle | mPickPlaneAngle | ||
Hydrogen bonds | mHbonds |
Calculate the H-bond energy and highlight them in the main window. |
|
E/Z geometry | mEzGeom | Show the E/Z geometry of the double bonds. | |
Bump check | mBumpCheck |
Perform the manual bump check. The collisions are shown by stippled lines which color can be changed in the Color settings dialog. The number of collisions is printed in the console and the monitors can be removed through Remove monitors menu item. |
|
RT bump check | mBumpCheckRT |
Enable/disable (default = enable) the real time bump check when you move molecules, segments and residues. If the computational power of your CPU isn't enough, disable this feature and use the manual bump check (see above). |
|
Joystick enabled | mJoyEnable |
Enable/disable the joystick control. |
|
Select |
See the Select item in the main menu. |
||
Display | Wireframe | mShowWire |
Switch the current display mode to Wireframe, Van der Waals dotted, Van der Waals vectorized, Van der Waals solid, CPK with vectors, CPK solid and liquorice. |
VdW Dotted | mShowVdwDot | ||
VdW | mShowVdwWire | ||
VdW Solid | mShowVdw | ||
CPK | mShowCpkWire | ||
CPK Solid | mShowCpk | ||
Liquorice | mShowLiquorice | ||
Settings | mShowSettings |
Show the display settings dialog box. |
|
Window | 320x240 | - |
Change the window size. Only the sizes compatible with the current screen resolution, are shown in the this submenu. |
640x480 | - | ||
800x600 | - | ||
1024x768 | - | ||
1280x1024 | - | ||
1600x1200 | - | ||
Reset | mResetView |
Reset the current view, changing to default the rotations, the translations and the scale factor. |
|
Stop calc. | mStopCalc | Stop the current calculation. |
Please note that the CmdName column contains the command name, that must be used with SendVegaCmd program to activate the menu functions in batch files (click here for more information).
When the main window is active, some commands can be executed directly from the keyboard, like shown in the following table:
Key | Description |
A |
Turn on/off the animation mode. |
ESC |
Close VEGA. |
L |
Switch on/off the light. |
Q | Go to the previous workspace. |
R | Enable the mouse rotation mode. |
S | Enable the mouse scale mode. |
SPC |
Reset view and eventually stop the animation. |
T | Enable the mouse translatiopn mode. |
V |
Change the current display mode in Wireframe -> Van der Waals dotted -> Van Der Waals vectorized -> Van der Waals solid -> CPK with vectors -> CPK solid -> Liquorice (see the main menu section). |
W | Go to the next workspace. |
Arrows Up, Down |
Rotate the molecule around the X axis. |
Arrows Left, Right |
Rotate the molecule around the Y axis. |
Pg. Up Pg. Down |
Rotate the molecule around the Z axis. |
To enable the joystick operation, you must check the Joystick enabled menu item present in the the context menu. The keyboard and the mouse are kept full operative. To change the joystick settings, see the configuration of the human interface devices (HID).
Another way to control the VEGA 3D visualization is the use of the 3D control window. It can be shown clicking View -> 3D controls.
![]() |
The window contains seven dynamic
buttons to control rotation, translation and scale factor. The bottom
slider sets the sensitivity of the dynamic buttons.
As an example, when you click X Translation button, the direction
is due by the clicking point: if you click the left part of the button,
the molecule is translated to left and clicking the right part, the it's
translated to right. The translation speed is higher clicking the button extremities,
but it's lower clicking the button center. |