PDB -> DXF or 3DS (Rendering)

[C. R. Bartke]

I am looking for a conversion utility that will read in a PDB-structure
file and then write a file-format that is understood by any rendering
program (POVray, 3D-Studio, ...). Presumably this is a .DXF or, in case
of 3D-Studio, a .3DS file.

I have experimented with BABEL (http://joplin.biosci.arizona.edu) which I
used to convert the PDB file to HyperCHEM's .HIN-format and then, using
a program called CINECHEM, I converted the .HIN-file to a .3DS-file. The
result was not very convincing for there a two major drawbacks:

- the .3DS file does not contain speres but faces and vertices, this in-
  creases the rendering time and the file size,
- either BABEL or CINECHEM (or both) did not make use of covalent radii;
  this results in 'ball'-atoms, having all the same radius, and therefore
  a 'correct' spacefilling representation is not possible.

My intention is to produce high-resolution, truecolor images of proteins.
Up till now I have been using Rasmol for visualization and the results
were really satisfying, especially the many different modes of representation
are very good, but unfortunately, the only way to get high-resolution
images is to run Rasmol with a high-res display mode (1024x768) and then
make a screen-capture, but still this does not give high- or truecolor.

Is there maybe another program like Rasmol on the Internet, which provides
higher image resolution output? This would help as well.

Thanks for your time and consideration,
Cornelius


___________________________________________________________________
Cornelius R. Bartke		       Student of Biology
Hauffstrasse 16			Gesamthochschule Universit„aet Kassel
34246 Vellmar				Kassel - Germany	 
Fon&Fax: ++49/561/823330	 e-mail: bartke at hrz.uni-kassel.de