That is beautiful! The pins-and-holes approach might be useful also for space-filling models of multi-subunit complexes- both for holding the subunits together, and in cases where one subunit partially encircles another, the subunit would be sliced in half and pins could hold the halves together. That would make an educational toy like a chinese puzzle, that you dissassemble and reassemble to see how the subunits fit together. Something like cytochrome oxdase (13 subunits), cytochrome bc1 (dimer of 11 subunits each),or Complex 1 (48? subunits). eab
On 05/20/2017 09:37 AM, Paul Paukstelis wrote:
Sorry for the somewhat off-topic post. After getting interested in 3D printing I quickly found that making nice ball-and-stick objects was very difficult to do on the typical fused filament printers most people can afford. This is largely because of the amount of support structures needed for complicated objects. I've been working on a Blender addon that takes VRML output from most common programs (PyMol, Chimera, etc.) and allows the user to split the model up to be printed as individual objects. It generates "pins" and "holes" to allow the objects to be assembled post-printing. It has gotten functional enough that I thought I would leave the link here for those that are interested: https://github.com/paukstelis/MolPrint I have used it to print some pretty complex models! https://thingiverse-production-new.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/0e/87/27/d8/0d/7f0cacf367cc2ed4b01c77705ff16767_preview_featured.JPG
