User Guide
This guide is intended to be used as a reference manual. You may also want to follow the simple steps described in the tutorials which give usage examples of the most important utilities. More documentation is also available on the methodology page and in the published articles .
Content:

collage - Simultaneous Multi-Fragment Refinement of Manual Docking
colores - FFT Accelerated 6D Exhaustive Search
eul2pdb - Graphical Representation of Euler Angles
map2map - Format Conversion
matchpt - Point Cloud Matching
pdb2sax - Create a Simulated SAXS Bead Model from a PDB
pdb2vol - Create a Volumetric Map from a PDB
pdbsymm - Symmetry Builder
qpdb - Vector Quantization of a PDB
qplasty - Interpolation of Sparsely Sampled Displacements
qvol - Vector Quantization of Volumetric Map
vol2pdb - Create a PDB from a Volumetric Map
volaver - Map Averaging
voldiff - Discrepancy / Difference Mapping
voledit - Inspecting 2D Sections and Editing of 3D Maps
volfltr - Denoising 3D Maps and 2D Image Stacks
volhist - Inspecting and Shifting the Voxel Histogram
volmult - Map / Mask Multiplication
voltrac - Alpha-Helix Detection and Filament Tracing
Header File and Library Routines
collage - Simultaneous Multi-Fragment Refinement of Manual Docking

Former name: colacor

Purpose:

collage performs a single run of off-lattice Powell optimization that refines a preliminary multi-fragment model (consisting of n input PDB files) to the nearest maximum of the cross-correlation. The needed start model of fragments could e.g. be derived manually by eye in a graphics program, or be based on colores or matchpt solutions. The simultaneous multi-fragment optimization of 6n rigid body degrees of freedom is advantageous because the fragments see each other and steric clashes are thus avoided. by means of the normalization of the cross-correlation. For more information see (Birmanns et al.,  2011).

As an additional useful option, collage can be used to compute the cross-correlation coefficient between a density map and (resolution-lowered) atomic structure(s). 

Basic usage (at shell prompt):

./collage <Density map> <PDB file(s)> -res <float> -cutoff <float>

The basic input parameters are:

<Density map> Density map in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

<PDB file(s)> A single or few input PDB files can be specified as a sequential list (all arguments are white space delimited, i.e. there should be no commas or other symbols between file names). To avoid very long arguments when processing a large number of input files one can also specify a directory name as the second argument. The designated directory should contain only relevant PDB input structures (identified by a .pdb or .PDB filename extension).

-res <float> Estimated resolution of the density map in Å. [default -res 15.0]

-cutoff <float> Density map threshold value. All density levels below this value are ignored. You can use volhist to rescale or shift the density levels in the voxel histogram. [default -cutoff 0.0]

-corr <int> This option controls the fitting criterion.
Two options are implemented: 

-corr 0  Standard linear cross-correlation. The scalar product between the density maps of the low resolution map and the low-pass filtered atomic structure. This is the recommended criterion for high resolution (<10Å) docking or for multi-fragment docking at all resolution levels. [default]

-corr 1 A Laplacian filter is applied by default to maximize the fitting contrast. This is the recommended docking criterion for low resolution docking (>10Å) of single fragments. To provide for a more robust algorithm when dealing with cropped or thresholded experimental data we implemented also a mask that filters out hard artificial surfaces. Due to the masking and filtering expect overall smaller correlation values compared to -corr 0.

More advanced options (at shell prompt):
<-ani <float> Defines the resolution anisotropy factor (z direction vs. x,y plane) [default: -ani 1.0]. Allows one to set a different resolution in the z direction vs. the x,y plane. E.g. "-ani 1.5 -res 20" specifies a 30 A resolution in the z direction, and a 20 A resolution in x,y. This is useful for researchers dealing with membrane protein or tomography reconstructions that have a reduced resolution in the z direction.
-nopowell This flag skips the Powell optimization. Only the cross-correlation coefficient is computed. By default the Powell optimization is turned on.

-pwti <float int> Powell tolerance and max number of iterations of the Powell algorithm. This two parameters control the convergence of the optimization. By default the tolerance is set to 1e-6 and the max iterations are limited to 50.

-pwdr <float float> Initial gradient of the translational and rotational search in the Powell optimization. By default the initial rotational gradient is set to 3.5 degrees. The rotational gradient cannot be larger than 10 degrees. If a larger value is chosen, that value is ignored and the gradient is set to 10 degrees. The translational initial gradient is set to 25% of the voxel spacing. To use the default value only for the rotational or only for the translational gradient, choose a negative number for the parameter that must be left at default, and your chosen value for the other.

-pwcorr <int> This option sets the Powell correlation algorithm. By default, the fastest algorithm which reproduces the standard cross correlation coefficient to within the Powell tolerance is determined at runtime.

-pwcorr 0 Determined at runtime [default]
-pwcorr 1 Standard three-step code
-pwcorr 2 Three-step code with mask applied
-pwcorr 3 One-step code optimized for a single, small PDB

-boost <int float float> Steric exclusion option (0=scale; 1=power), boost threshold t, and scale factor or exponent u. In multi-fragment fitting, overlapping subunits lead to enhanced densities in the overlap region that reduce correlation values with the target map. This penalty can be increased by applying a scale factor or power law to high densities resulting from steric overlap. The threshold parameter t defines the fraction (typically < 1) of the maximum single-subunit density at which the boost kicks in. Densities above this threshold are increased either by simple scaling (option 0): f(x>t) = ux, or by a power function (option 1) which is continuously differentiable at the threshold: f(x) = x^u (t=0), f(x>t) = (t-t/u) + (t/u) (x/t)^u (t>0). In practice thresholds near 0.9 and factors of 2-5, or exponents of 5-20, seem to work fine. Note that the density transformation affects only the upper tail of the density distribution, i.e. non-overlapping regions are largely unaffected. [default: none]

Input at program prompt:
None.

Output:
Shell window: The cross-correlation coefficient and other useful information about the progress of the refinement. Depending on the overlap of structure and map, a good fit with -corr 1 (default Laplacian filter) setting may have values upto 0.5, and with -corr 0 (standard correlation) may have values upto 0.9. These values are smaller if the structures do not account for the entire map density.

Files:

cge_001.pdb ... cge_00n.pdb The atomic coordinates in PDB format of the final fits for each input fragment. 

cge_powell.log This file contains information about the 6n dimensional Powell off-lattice search. Rotational and translational coordinates correspond to the first 6 columns, the Euler angles are in degrees.

colores - FFT-Accelerated 6D Exhaustive Search

Purpose:

colores = COrrelation based LOw RESolution docking. A general purpose, multi-processor capable rigid-body search tool, suitable for single subunit structures which are not necessarily expected to account for the full map. The translational search is FFT-accelerated and the program supports the use of a Laplacian-style filter (can be turned off) that drastically increases the fitting contrast at medium to low resolution (for more info see the corresponding methods page). This tool performs a full exhaustive search in 6D search space (3 translational and 3 rotational degrees of freedom) within a couple of minutes of compute time, depending on system size and numbers of processors used. For more information see (Chacón and Wriggers,  2002).

Basic usage (at shell prompt):

./colores <density map> <PDB structure> -res <float> -cutoff <float> -deg <float> -nprocs <int>

The basic input parameters are:

<density map> Density map in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

<PDB structure> Atomic structure in PDB format.

-nprocs <int> This option sets the number of processors used for the on-lattice 6D search and the off-lattice Powell optimization. Colores supports shared memory systems with multiple core and/or hyperthreaded processors. [default: the number of cores of the CPU]

-res <float> Estimated resolution of your density map in Å. [default -res 15.0]

-cutoff <float> Density map cutoff value. All density levels below this value are set to zero. You can use volhist to rescale the density levels or to shift the background peak in the voxel histogram to the origin. [default -cutoff 0.0]

-deg <float> Angular sampling of the rotational search space in degrees. For typical electron microscopy maps the angular step size should be between 6-20°. [default -deg 15.0]

-corr <int> This option controls the fitting criterion.
Two options are implemented:

-corr 0 [default for res.<10Å] Standard linear cross-correlation. The scalar product between the density maps of the low resolution map and the low-pass filtered atomic structure. For resolutions > 10Å this criterion is less discriminative.

-corr 1 [default for res.>=10Å] A Laplacian filter is applied by default to maximize the fitting contrast. This is the recommended docking criterion for low resolution docking (up to 25Å resolution). To provide for a more robust algorithm when dealing with cropped or thresholded experimental data we implemented a mask that filters out hard artificial surfaces. Due to the masking and filtering expect overall smaller correlation values compared to -corr 0. Also, due to the emphasis on contour matching over interior volume matching some solutions may not be fully contained within the map if the subunit surfaces are large compared to the volume.
More advanced options (at shell prompt):

-ani <float> Defines the resolution anisotropy factor (z direction vs. x,y plane) [default: -ani 1.0]. Allows one to set a different resolution in the z direction vs. the x,y plane. E.g. "-ani 1.5 -res 20" specifies a 30 A resolution in the z direction, and a 20 A resolution in x,y. This is useful for researchers dealing with membrane protein or tomography reconstructions that have a reduced resolution in the z direction.

-erang <float float float float float float> Defines the rotational space limits according to the range of the Euler angles (psi, theta, phi). By default the entire rotational space is considered [default: -erang 0 360 0 180 0 360]. Note that the Euler angle range is not limited to these standard intervals, so you can specify also negative values (within certain limits), but in any event any colores output angles are remapped to the standard intervals. For example, if you want to perform a fine search of 2° angular sampling in only one of the Euler angles, these are the options:

./colores em.sit atoms.pdb -res 9.0 -cutoff 1.0 -deg 2 -erang 0 360 0 0 0 0

-euler <int> There are three ways to generate an exhaustive list of Euler angles that covers (nearly) uniformly the rotational space for a given angular sampling (option -deg). The proportional method yields very even results and also performs well for smaller intervals specified via '-erang'. The pole sparsing method is widely used but yields slightly less uniform distributions. The spiral method also produces a less uniform distribution, but for medium to low resolution docking it is quite reasonable. The Euler angles are saved to a file col_eulers.dat, and you can edit this file and reload it using the -euler 3 option. This way, you can also load any manually generated Euler angle files.

-euler 0 Proportional method [default]
-euler 1 Pole sparsing method
-euler 2 Spiral method
-euler 3 <filename> Input file
Here is an example generating the Euler angle distribution with 8° angular sampling using the spiral method:

./colores em.sit atoms.pdb -res 9.0 -cutoff 1.0 -deg 8 -euler 2

-peak <int> This option sets the peak search algorithm. By default, a combined sorting and filtering-based approach is used. A stand-alone filtering-based algorithm is available as an option.

-peak 0 Original peak search by sort and filter [default]
-peak 1 Peak search by filter only

-explor <int> Controls the number of the best fits found in the 6D on-lattice search to be subsequently refined by Powell optimization. This number is only an upper bound for the final number, since redundant solutions are removed in the Powell stage. [default -explor 10]

-sizef <float> FFT zero padding factor. The low resolution map is enlarged by a margin of width sizef times the map dimensions. We have optimized the zero padding empirically [default -sizef 0.1 for standard and 0.2 for Laplacian correlation]

-sculptor Save additional outout files for interactive exploration of fits with Sculptor [default: Off]

-nopowell This flag skips the Powell optimization and only the on-lattice search is performed. By default the Powell optimization is turned on.

-pwti <float int> Powell tolerance and max number of iterations of the Powell algorithm. This two parameters control the convergence of the optimization. By default, the tolerance is set to 1e-6 and the max iterations are limited to 25.

-pwdr <float float> Initial gradient of the translational and rotational search in the Powell optimization. By default the initial rotational gradient is set to 25% of the angular sampling (but not larger than 10°), and the translational initial gradient is set to 25% of the voxel spacing. To use the default value only for the rotational or only for the translational gradient, choose a negative number for the parameter that must be left at default, and your chosen value for the other.

-pwcorr <int> This option sets the Powell correlation algorithm. By default, the fastest algorithm which reproduces the standard cross correlation coefficient to within the Powell tolerance is determined at runtime.

-pwcorr 0 Determined at runtime [default]
-pwcorr 1 Standard three-step code
-pwcorr 2 Three-step code with mask applied
-pwcorr 3 One-step code for small probe structures

-nopeaksharp This flag skips the peak sharpness estimation procedure in order to save processing time. By default, the peak sharpness estimation is turned on.

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

Here is a brief description of the output files (see also the file headers);

col_best*.pdb The atomic coordinates in PDB format of the best fits found in the search. The total number of best fits saved is controlled by the option -explor, but only non-degenerate fits are returned, so the number may be smaller than specified by the -explor option. The PDB header contains information about the docking (sampling, fit criteria used, correlation values, position and orientation etc.). It also includes a table containing the angular variability of the correlation about the fit.

col_rotate.log This file contains the best translational fit (on-lattice) found for each rotation. The first 3 columns are the Euler angles (in degrees), the next 3 columns are the translational coordinates that gave the highest correlation value, followed by the correlation value (not normalized).

col_powell.log This file contains information about the Powell off-lattice search performed for the best fits from 6D lattice search. As before, rotational and translational coordinates correspond to the first 6 columns , but note that the Euler angles are in radian units.

col_trans.sit The on-lattice translation function (in Situs map format). Since the translational search space corresponds to the input map lattice , we can generate a map in which density values are the correlation values normalized by the maximum. You can use map2map to convert this to other formats.

col_trans.log Same as col_trans.sit, but instead of a map, the translational correlation values are stored in a regular file. Each row that corresponds to a lattice coordinate (columns 4,5,6) shows the corresponding Euler angles (columns 1,2,3) in degrees that exhibit the highest correlation value (column 7).

col_eulers.dat This file contains the list of uniform Euler angle triplets that defines the rotational space search. You can load such a file by using the option -euler 3. You can also inspect this file with the eul2pdb tool.

col_lo_fil.sit The zero padded, interpolated, and filtered target volume in Situs format just prior to correlation calculation. This map is useful mainly for inspecting the effect of low-pass or Laplacian filtering. You can use map2map to convert this to other formats.

col_hi_fil.sit The filtered (and centered) probe structure on the lattice in Situs format just prior to correlation calculation. This map is useful mainly for inspecting the effect of low-pass or Laplacian filtering. You can use map2map to convert this to other formats.

Additional output files will be written for interactive exploration with the -sculptor option (see colores output and the Sculptor documentation).

Notes:

  • Depending on the overlap of structure and map, one can expect correlation values of about 0.6-0.9 or 0.3-0.5 for standard and Laplacian correlation, respectively. These guideline numbers would be smaller if the fitted atomic structure does not account for the entire map density.
  • The time estimation gives a quite accurate estimate of the on-lattice 6D search time, however, the subsequent off-lattice Powell optimization is not considered in the estimation and depends on the -explor number. You can balance the precision of the search (e.g. angular sampling, option -deg) with the compute expense. For medium to low resolution maps angular sampling steps of < 10° are not particularly useful since the Powell algorithm has a large radius of convergence. You could save time if you use only the carbon alpha or backbone atoms of the input structure but the savings are often insignificant so we recommend fitting with all heavy (non-hydrogen) atoms.
  • If you have a large map you can try to crop the data to a region of interest (e.g. the asymmetric unit). Allow for sufficient room for the probe structure since you do not know its exact location a priori.
  • This is a rigid body search. If you expect large, induced fit conformational changes, you can dissect your atomic structures into rigid-body domains and perform the docking with each of them individually. Alternatively, you may want to try our flexible fitting strategies.

eul2pdb - Graphical Representation of Euler Angles

Purpose:

The eul2pdb utility is used to generate a graphical representation of a set of Euler angles resulting from a colores run. The eul2pdb programs writes a pseudo-atomic structure in a PDB formatted file where the set of Euler angles is represented as a set of points on a 10A radius sphere. This file can then be inspected with a visualization program (for example VMD).

Usage (at shell prompt):

./eul2pdb col_eulers.dat out_file

out_file: output file, PDB format

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

Pseudo-atomic structure in PDB-format. Each triplet of Euler angles in the input file is represented as a point on a 10A radius sphere. The phi Euler angle (rotation in the projection plane) is encoded in the B-factor column of the PDB file (in radians units), whereas theta and psi correspond to longitude and latitude on the sphere.
map2map - Format Conversion

Former names: convert, conformat

Purpose:

Situs programs require density maps either in Situs or in CCP4/MRC format. The details and conventions of these formats are documented elsewhere. The map2map program converts other map formats to and from these supported formats.

The map2map utility reads and writes many file formats used by standard EM or crystallographic application software. These include the MRC, SPIDER, and CCP4 formats and generic 4-byte floating-point binary formats (automatic byte-order adjustment). X-PLOR maps in ASCII format, and ASCII files that contain a sequence of density values in free format are also recognized. The reverse conversion to CCP4, MRC, X-PLOR, or SPIDER format is also supported.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./map2map file1 file2

file1: inputfile
file2: outputfile

Interactive input at program prompt (for automation see below):

  • Input file format.
  • Input file specific header fields if they are missing or if manual editing of fields is selected.

Output:

Density file in selected format. If necessary, the program permutes the axis order (CCP4 and MRC)  and interpolates maps to a cubic lattice (X-PLOR, CCP4, MRC).  Details vary by map format and are too numerous to list here, please read about the Situs and CCP4/MRC conventions here and inspect the program text in the terminal window carefully.

Notes:

  • Also check out the free conversion programs MAPMAN, and especially em2em which also has Situs and CCP4/MRC format options.
  • The maps are quite robust under most round trip conversions, but note that header fields WIDTH, ORIGX, ORIGY, ORIGZ are not part of the SPIDER specification and cannot be saved in SPIDER.
  • Advanced users may try the manual assignment of header fields, if available. 
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).
matchpt - Point Cloud Matching

Supersedes former programs: qdock, qrange

Purpose:

The matchpt ("matchpoint") utility is a command-line program for matching arbitrary sized 3D point sets (coarse-grained models), which can be generated on the fly or by using the output of the Situs programs qpdb and qvol. matchpt can dock a subunit into a larger target map, i.e find N codebook vectors within another set with M vectors, N<M (where M ≈ nr. units * N) and match them. To solve this problem, matchpt uses a heuristic and investigates only a subset of all possible permutations of feature-points (Birmanns and Wriggers,  2007). 

The idea of matching point sets was based on the observation that for many low-resolution maps numeric values of the cross-correlation (CC) are often in a narrow range and less discriminatory as the RMSD values of the feature point (Wriggers et al, 1999). This is due to the fact that feature points can reliably and reproducibly encode the molecular shape even in the absence of interior (secondary structure) density features. Therefore, it makes sense for difficult low-resolution maps to try matchpt as an alternative to the CC-based tools colores and collage. In the default mode a user would explore the quality of the match of the point clouds by minimizing their RMSD. Alternatively, the minimum of the statistical variability (here: sum of average variabilities of both point sets) can be used for selecting an optimum number N. M as it was found to be a good estimator for the docking accuracy (Wriggers and Birmanns, 2001). Finally, a user may wish to explore the standard cross-correlation (CC), which is discretely sampled by the point cloud matches (however, as stated CC refinement is not the main purpose of the program as more powerful CC-based tools exist).

Basic usage (at shell prompt):

./matchpt file1 file2 file3 file4 [options]
file1: inputfile 1, Codebook vectors from qvol in PDB format
Use NONE if the codebook vectors should be calculated within matchpt.
In that case matchpt will compute and match a series of vector sets and will return the result with the smallest rmsd. file3 also has to be set to NONE.

file2: inputfile 2, Density map. Use NONE if no correlation calculation desired

file3: inputfile 3, Codebook vectors from qpdb in PDB format.
Use NONE if the codebook vectors should be calculated within matchpt

file4: inputfile 4, High-resolution structure in PDB format. Use NONE if only the codebook vectors should be matched.

Optional command line parameters:

-res <float> Estimated resolution of file2 in Å. This currently affects only the computed cross-corelation value, not the docking.  [default 15.0Å]

-explor <int> Controls the maximum number of docking solutions that are 'explored' and written to disk. This number is an upper bound since the solutions must pass the anchor point matching criteria below. [default 10]

-mincv <int> For autogeneration of feature points, or "codebook vectors" (CV), minimum number N of vectors per structure (file4) unit, must be >= 4.  [default 4]

-maxcv <int> For autogeneration of codebook vectors, maximum number N of vectors per structure (file4) unit, must be >= mincv. [default 9]

-units <float> For autogeneration of N and M (M ≈ units * N) codebook vectors, number of structure units contained in target volume. [default 1.0]

-nprocs <int> Number of parallel processing threads.  [default: number of cores of the CPU]

-anchor <float>  Radius of initial anchor point triangle search space in Å. [default 12.0Å, the larger the slower]

-radius <float>  Radius of the neighbor-search in Å. [default 10.0Å, the larger the slower]

-wildcards <int> Wildcards: How many unmatched points are allowed. To avoid false positives, it should not be larger than 10% of N. [default 0, the larger the slower]

-penalty <float> Wildcard penalty in Å. How much should the solutions be penalized if they include unmatched points. [default: 1Å]

-runs <int> Number of anchor point runs. The algorithm will try different anchor point triangles if set to > 1. [default: 3]

-cluster <int> Number of statistically independent runs used in the clustering of the CV and in the determination of their variabilities. The CV and their variabilities will become more accurate with larger number but compute time increases linearly. [default: 8, the larger the slower]

-ident <float> Distance cutoff in Å for removing identical solutions. Useful mainly for oligomeric systems. [default 0Å, the higher the more results are filtered]

-ranking <int> Sets criteria for sorting the solutions and for the selection of the optimum number of CV when probing a series of codebook vectors in autogenerate mode. The left criterion in the list below controls the selection of optimum number of CV (if a range of numbers is explored), the right criterion always controls the ranking of the final solutions written to disk:
-ranking 0: minimum RMSD of codebook vectors / RMSD [default]
-ranking 1: minimum RMSD of codebook vectors / CC
-ranking 2: minimum CV variability / RMSD
-ranking 3: minimum CV variability / CC
-ranking 4: maximum CC / RMSD
-ranking 5: maximum CC / CC
Output:

Shell window:  Solution filenames, codebook vector RMSDs, cross-correlation coefficients and permutations are printed out. The permutations indicate the order of low res. vectors fitted to high res. vectors.

Files:

mpt_CV_001.pdb ... mpt_CV_00n.pdb The fitted codebook vectors in PDB format.

mpt_CV_map.pdb The codebook vectors for file2 (volumetric map) in PDB format.

mpt_001.pdb ... mpt_00n.pdb The atomic coordinates in PDB format of the structures fitted by codebook vectors.

[ or mpt_001.log ... mpt_00n.log log files (text format) with fitting transformation. ]

Notes:

  • Like in other Situs tools, the input density map should be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.
  • For situations where a smaller structure has to be docked into a larger density (e.g. oligomeric map), several parameters need to be adjusted. (1) Most importantly, the -units parameter defines the fraction of occupied volume (which may be non-integer), i.e. it estimates how many atomic structures (file4) fit into the volume (file2). (2) To estimate the number of codebook vectors (-mincv and -maxcv), divide the volume of the target map by (-units * -res^3) which gives an upper bound for the number of CV that should be used. It's useful to bracket near the 50% level of this upper bound, e.g. -mincv ~ 20% and -maxcv ~ 50%. (3) The -explor parameter controls how many files are written to disk. This should be at least the number of subunits (-units) of the system, but in practice it should be set to a higher value to avoid false negatives (sometimes the algorithm finds multiple possible orientations for a single subunit which might push another solution out of the the top ranking list). (4) The parameter -ident can also help avoid finding multiple instances of the same unit. -ident will filter the solutions based on the distance of the centroids of the found subunits: if two configurations are too close, only the one with the higher score is considered. It is recommended to try to increase the number of solutions first before one filters the found units with the -ident parameter.

  • Sometimes the default parameters simplify the search process too much and an insufficient number of solutions (or none) are found. In this case try first to match the map as closely to the atomic structure as possible, e.g. one could segment or threshold the map with voledit, to reduce the size of the occupied volume and to exclude outside densities or noise. One could also adjust the algorithm, e.g. an increase in the number of anchor-point triangles (via -anchor), leads to only a moderatly increased runtime of the program. In another step, one could also try to increase the search radius for potentially matching points (via -radius),  which will increase the runtime more significantly. 
pdb2sax - Create a Simulated Bead Model from a PDB

Purpose:

The pdb2sax utility allows one to fill an input atomic structure with close-packed spheres on a hexagonal lattice. It allows one to create simulated bead models for validating Situs modeling applications.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./pdb2sax file1 file2 radius

file1: inputfile, PDB format
file2: outputfile (bead model), PDB format
radius: bead radius in Angstrom

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

Choice of atom mass-weighting and B-factor cutoff level. Atoms with B-factors above the cutoff level will be ignored. You can automate this program by "overloading" the standard input if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials.

Output:

PDB file that contains the centers of the simulated beads with the radii in the occupancy column. This file can then be either inspected with a visualization program (for example VMD), or processed into a bead volume map using pdb2vol.
pdb2vol - Create a Volumetric Map from a PDB

Former name: pdblur

Purpose:

The pdb2vol utility is a real-space convolution tool. It allows one to lower the resolution of an atomic structure to a user-specified value, or to create a bead model from atomic coordinates. The structure is first projected to a cubic lattice by trilinear interpolation. Subsequently, each lattice point is convoluted with one of five supported kernel (point-spread) functions.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./pdb2vol file1 file2

file1: inputfile (PDB format)
file2: outputfile (density map)

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

  • If water, hydrogen,codebook vector atoms are present, choice of ignoring them.
  • Choice of atom mass-weighting and B-factor cutoff level. Atoms with B-factors above the cutoff level will be ignored.
  • Desired voxel spacing for output map.
  • Kernel width, defined by either the kernel half-max radius r-half (enter positive value) or by the target resolution of the output map (enter value of resolution as negative number). The standard deviation (sigma) of the kernel is assumed to be half the target resolution.
  • Type of smoothing kernel:
    • Gaussian, exp(-1.5 r^2 / sigma^2)
    • Triangular, max(0, 1 - 0.5 |r| / r-half)
    • Semi-Epanechnikov, max(0, 1 - 0.5 |r|^1.5 / r-half^1.5)
    • Epanechnikov, max(0, 1 - 0.5 r^2 / r-half^2)
    • Hard Sphere, max(0, 1 - 0.5 r^60 / r-half^60)
  • Choice of correction for lattice smoothing (subtract the lattice projection mean-square deviation from the kernel variance).
  • The kernel amplitude at the kernel origin (r=0).
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

Output:

Density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new grid follows the coordinate system origin convention of the atomic structure and forms the smallest possible box that fully encloses the structure convoluted by the kernel.
pdbsymm - Symmetry Builder

Supersedes former program: hlxbuild

Purpose:

The pdbsymm tool generates multiple copies of the input structure according to a user-specified symmetry. Currently supported symmetry types include: C, D and helical. The program assumes that principal symmetry or helical axes are oriented in the z direction. If an input map (optional) is specified, the x- and y-position of the principal symmetry or helical axis is automatically set to the center of a x-y cross-section*. If D symmetry is requested, the z-position of the secondary axes is set to the center of the y-z cross-section*. 

*Normally the geometric center is used, but if this center falls between voxels, in version 2.6.2 and later it will be set to the next highest voxel. E.g. the center of an even-numbered 64x128x256 map would be set to voxel (33,65,129), whereas the center of an odd-numbered 63x127x255 map would be the exact geometric center (32,64,128).

You can pad or crop maps accordingly with voledit (to set the symmetry axes as desired), or the symmetry center can be specified interactively without use of the optional map. 

The optional map must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./pdbsymm file1 [file2] file3

file1: inputfile, PDB format
file2: (optional) inputfile for helical or symmetry axis (density map)
file3: outputfile, PDB format

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

Depending on symmetry type:

  • Helical rise per subunit (in z-direction).
  • Angular twist per subunit (sign determines handedness).
  • Desired number of subunits to be placed before file1 structure.
  • Desired number of subunits to be placed after file1 structure.
  • Order of the principal symmetry.
  • [If file2 is unspecified: x- and y-position of helical axis (offset from file1 coordinate system origin).]
  • z-position of secondary symmetry axes (for D symmetry - offset from file1 coordinate system origin).
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

Output:

Symmetry PDB file containing multiple copies of input PDB file.
qpdb - Vector Quantization of a PDB

Purpose:

Specialized tool to perform a vector quantization of atomic resolution data. qpdb supports the correlation-coefficient based docking with qdock, and also flexible docking. To enable skeleton-based flexible docking with qvol, qpdb includes options to learn vector distances and to export the Voronoi cells generated by the vectors.

In qpdb a small number of calculations (8 by default) are repeated with different random number seeds. The averaged codebook vectors and their statistical variability are then written to the output file.

Usage:

First, the user must determine a suitable number of codebook vectors. For rigid-body docking, a small number (3-6) is usually sufficient. qpdb employs an efficient mass-weighting scheme using "equally weighted input vectors". The program also allows to ignore flexible or poorly defined atoms with high crystallographic B-factors. This option should only be chosen if there is an indication that parts of the protein are not visible in the low-resolution data due to disorder.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./qpdb file1 file2

file1: inputfile (atomic structure), PDB format
file2: outputfile (codebook vectors), PDB format

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

  • If water, hydrogen,codebook vector atoms are present, choice of ignoring them.
  • B-factor cutoff level. Atoms with B-factors above this level will be ignored.
  • Number of codebook vectors.
  • Choice of computing the vector connectivities (neighborhood relationships) with the Competitive Hebb Rule and writing them to a file.
  • Choice of computing the Voronoi cells and writing them to a file.
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

Output:
  • (Program level:) The sphericity, a measure between 0 and 1 that characterizes how spherical the shape of the structure (file1) is. After the vector quantization the program prints the average rms variability of the codebook vectors in Angstrom. Also given in Angstrom is the radius of gyration of the vectors.
  • (Shell level:) Codebook vectors in PDB-formatted output file. The vector rms variabilities, representing the precision of the codebook vectors, are written to the occupancy fields of the PDB-style atom entries. The effective radii of the Voronoi cells are written to the B-factor fields of the PDB-style atom entries. (Optional) Vector connectivities can be written to a PSF file or a distance constraints file. Constraint file entries are triples of free-format values in the order <index1> <index2> <distance in Angstrom>, where the indices correspond to the order of vectors in file2, counting from 1. (Optional) The Voronoi cells can be written to a PDB file consisting of the file1 atom entries where the index of each corresponding vector is written to the B-factor field of the output file.
qplasty - Interpolation of Sparsely Sampled Displacements

Purpose:

This program performs an approximative flexible fitting of atomic resolution data based on a coarse input model of displacements. The interpolation-based flexing is quite reasonable at the carbon alpha level of proteins, but bond lengths and angles at the atomic level may get distorted a bit. Flexing with qplasty is offered as a user-friendly alternative to a more complicated molecular dynamics simulation protocol. The qplasty-flexed structures may be processed further by a variety of simulation or structure refinement tools. For more information see (Rusu et al.,  2008).

Usage:

First, the user must create a suitable coarse model of the displacements using codebook vectors as simulated markers for the feature positions before and after flexing. Details of the modeling steps are explained in the basic and advanced flexing tutorials. The displacements in the form of two PDB input files are then applied in the UNIX command shell as follows. By default, the program assumes Global IDW interpolation with exponent 8. The user may specify an option -byres to turn on interpolation by residue, or -interactive for a free choice of interpolation methods and parameters.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./qplasty file1 file2 file3 file4 [options]
file1: inputfile (atomic structure), PDB format
file2: inputfile (start codebook vectors), PDB format
file3: inputfile (end codebook vectors or displacements), PDB format
file4: outputfile (flexed atomic structure), PDB format

[options]: optional flag for default parameters or full interactive mode:

(default) or -byatom : interpolation by atom
-byres : interpolation by residue, to reduce the number of broken bonds
-interactive : free choice of methods and parameters

Optional interactive / manual input at program prompt with -interactive:

  • The choice of interpolation method (Thin-Plate-Splines, Elastic Body Splines, Global Inverse Distance Weighting, Local Inverse Distance Weighting). The default method (Global IDW interpolation with exponent 8) performed best in our tests (Rusu et al, 2008), so there is no need to change it except for further validation of the supported algorithms.
  • Various kernel and parameter choices (for details see Rusu et al, 2008).

Output:
  • (Program level:) Various interpolation parameters and methods.
  • (Shell level:) The flexed atomic coordinates will be exported into file4.
qvol - Vector Quantization of Volumetric Map

Purpose:

Specialized tool to perform a vector quantization of low-resolution, single molecule data. qvol supports the correlation-coefficient based docking with qdock, and flexible docking with qplasty. In the absence of existing vector positions, qvol carries out a global search using the TRN algorithm. If start vectors are already known, the LBG local search algorithm is used instead of TRN, or connectivities can be learned. LBG allows to add distance constraints to the vector refinement that are useful for flexible docking.

With TRN, a small number of calculations (8 by default) are repeated with different random number seeds. The averaged codebook vectors and their statistical variability are then written to the output file. With LBG, no statistical clustering is performed. In this case it is important to specify reliable initial positions from a prior qvol run.

Usage:

In a practical application of qvol, one should extract from the volumetric data a region of interest corresponding to a single molecule using e.g. voledit. Next, the user must determine a suitable number of codebook vectors. Only densities above a user-defined threshold value are considered by qvol to eliminate background noise in the low-resolution data. Depending on the noise, this threshold value should be at 50-80% of the level that is typically considered the "molecular surface" of the biopolymer in the low-resolution data.

New vector positions are calculated automatically with the TRN method if no start vectors are specified. Subsequently, these vector positions can be refined in a second qvol run with the LBG method. Also, any distance constraints can be read from a file or entered at the command prompt at this time.

The input map must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./qvol file1 [file2] file3

file1: inputfile, density map
file2: inputfile, start vectors, PDB format (optional)
file3: outputfile, PDB format

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

  • Choice of utilities to inspect the density distribution (e.g. voxel histogram).
  • Threshold (cutoff) density value.
  • Number of codebook vectors.
  • (If file2 is specified): Choice of entering distance constraints manually or from a file. There are two constraint file options. Constraint file entries generated e.g. with qpdb are triples of free-format values in the order <index1> <index2> <distance in Angstrom>, where the indices correspond to the order of vectors in file2, counting from 1. It is also possible to read the connectivities from a PSF file in which case the missing distances are computed from file2.
  • Choice of computing the vector connectivities (neighborhood relationships) with the Competitive Hebb Rule and writing them to a file.
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

Output:

  • (Program level:) Statistical analysis of the vectors and their radius of gyration, i.e. the radial rms deviation from the vector center of mass.
  • (Shell level): Codebook vectors in a PDB-formatted output file. The vector rms variabilities, representing the precision of the codebook vectors, are written to the occupancy fields of the PDB-style atom entries. (Optional) Vector connectivities can be written to a PSF file or a distance constraints file.

Notes:
  • Vector connectivities in PSF format can be visualized and edited as bond connections (together with the atom-style PDB entries of file2 and file3) using the molecular graphics program VMD. Simply overload the PSF file into the PDB file in the VMD 'Molecule' menu. Then under the 'Mouse' menu select 'Add/Remove Bonds'. The edited connectivity can then be saved later into a PSF file from the VMD command console (assuming your molecule is 'top'):

 
    set sel [atomselect top all]
    $sel writepsf my.psf

  • If there are cluster size deviations from the expected value (default: 8) when using the TRN algorithm, refine the found vector positions by passing them to qvol as input file of a second, LBG run.
  • Distance constraints do not determine the chirality (handedness) of vector connections. If you encounter mirror images or otherwise flipped connections after running qvol compared to connections determined with qpdb, you need to experiment with the indexing of your constraints. The LBG method combined with the SHAKE constraint algorithm is relatively insensitive to the position of start vectors.
vol2pdb - Create a PDB from a Volumetric Map

Purpose:

The vol2pdb utility allows one to encode positive density values of a 3D map into a PDB file with the densities written to the PDB occupancy column. This is useful for colores and collage, both of which require a PDB and a map as input parameters. The input map must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./vol2pdb file1 file2

file1: inputfile, density map
file2: outputfile, PDB format

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

PDB format file with densities written to occupancy field (if rescaling necessary the conversion factor is given by the program).
volaver - Map Averaging

Purpose:

The volaver utility allows one to compute the density average of multiple input density maps The input datasets can differ in their geometric parameters. If necessary the input files are resampled to a grid that spans all input files. Maps must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./volaver file1 file2 [file...] outfile

file1:     inputfile 1, density map
file2:     inputfile 2, density map
[file...]  (optional) additional input maps
outfile:   outputfile density map

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

Density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new density values are computed by averaging the input densities. The input maps are resampled by trilinear interpolation, if necessary, to span all input files. The voxel spacing of the output grid is set by inputfile 1.
voldiff - Discrepancy / Difference Mapping

Former name: subtract

Purpose:

The voldiff utility allows one to compute the difference density map (discrepancy map) of two volume data sets. The input maps can differ in their geometric parameters. If necessary the second input file is resampled to the grid of the first input file. Maps must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./voldiff file1 file2 outfile

file1:   inputfile 1, density map
file2:   inputfile 2, density map
outfile: outputfile, density map

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

Density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new density values are computed by subtracting the corresponding density values of file2 (which is resampled by trilinear interpolation, if necessary) from those of input file1. The output grid thus inherits the geometric parameters from file1.
voledit - Inspecting 2D Sections and Editing of 3D Maps

Supersedes former programs: volslice, floodfill, volpad (padup), volcrop (pindown), volvoxl (interpolate)

Purpose:

2D cross-sections of 3D density data in the (x,y)-, (y,z)-, or (z,x)-planes, or 2D projections in z, x, y direction, can be inspected with the simple terminal window graphics program voledit. To ensure maximum compatibility and ease of installation we use 1970s style ASCII text character rendering. Despite this simple retro appearance the program is surprisingly powerful and offers a large number of useful map editing functions. For example, volumes can be edited by cropping, zero padding, polygon clipping, thresholding, and segmentation (specified under options). The utility can also be used to write individual 2D slices or 3D volumes to external files. The map must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.
Usage (at shell prompt):

./voledit file1

file1: inputfile, density map

Interactive input at program prompt (also suitable for automation):

  • Type of cross section, (x,y), (y,z), or (z,x).
  • Display cutoff value for the rendering of the density (options).
  • z, x, or y position of the cross section plane (grid units).
  • Display voxel step (for display of larger maps).
  • Polygon clipping parameters and vertices (options).
  • Cropping parameters in voxel units (options).
  • Zero padding in voxel units (options).
  • Density threshold where all densities will be set to zero (or one) (options).
  • Segmentation parameters to extract a targeted contiguous volume. Originating from the vicinity of a given start voxel, voledit finds recursively the maximum contiguous volume formed by neighboring voxels that exceed a given threshold density level. An additional layer is added for aesthetic reasons to facilitate isocontouring near the cutoff level. Although the extracted grid contains some voxels (in the contour layer) with densities below the cutoff, all voxels with density values above the cutoff are guaranteed to be part of the found contiguous volume. Voxels outside the contour layer are assigned a density value of 0.
  • File name for 2D slice or 3D volume output file (options).
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

    •
Output:

(Shell window:) Cross-section of the input map for standard section indices > 0 (follwing Situs index numbering convention starting at 1), or the projection (average) along this direction for a special slice 0. Larger maps are resaled by the voxel step parameter that can be set under options. Pairs of displayed voxels neighboring in the vertical direction are represented by a single character:

'^' if the upper voxel density exceeds a cutoff evel,
'u', if the lower voxel density exceeds the cutoff level,
'0' if both upper and lower voxel densities exceed the cutoff level, and
' ', if the densities are below the cutoff.
(2D Output File:) Voxel indices and/or density of specified section (or projection) with user-selected formatting.

(3D Output File:) Density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new grid inherits the voxel size (grid spacing) of the old grid. The number of x, y, and z increments, and the coordinates of voxel (1,1,1) depend on the chosen editing options (cropping, padding, segmentation). For example, in segmentation when shrinking of the box is selected, the grid dimensions are determined by the minimum box that contains both the contiguous volume plus one layer of neighboring voxels (for rendering purposes).

Notes:

This program requires the use of a fixed-width font in the shell window.

volfltr - Denoising 3D Maps and 2D Image Stacks

Purpose:

The volfltr ("volfilter") utility performs a denoising of 3D maps and 2D image stacks using a digital paths filtering approach (Zbigniew Starosolski et al., submitted).  More detailed information will be posted here shortly as the paper is nearing publication. As with all Situs programs, volfltr can be called without arguments to access the usage documentation.

The input map must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./volfltr file1 file2 <mask_width> <path_length> <path_type> <beta> [<nprocs>]

file1: input file, density map
file2: output file, density map

Example of use: volftr infile.situs outfile.mrc 5 2 3 0.0001

Required command line parameters:

mask_width <int> 2*n+1 (odd integer), where integer n > 0 is the minimum path length.  [example: 5]

path_length <int> n (emphasize straight paths) or >n (emphasize curved paths). [example: 2]

path_type <int> 0 for 4-neighborhood 2D model (image stack)
                             1 for 8-neighborhood 2D model (image stack)
                             2 for 6-neighborhood 3D model (3D map)
                             3 for 26-neighborhood 3D model (3D map) [example: 3]

beta <float> weighting exponent. This exponent determines how the ranked paths affect the filter output. The number depends on the path cardinality (see paper). Larger values are more discriminative. [example: 0.0001]

Optional command line parameter:

nprocs <int> Number of parallel processing threads.  [default: number of cores of the CPU]

Input at program prompt: 

None.

Output:

Filtered density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise).

volhist - Inspecting and Manipulating the Voxel Histogram

Former name: histovox

Purpose:

The volhist utility prints or matches the voxel histogram [Frank et al., 1991] of input maps. The histogram illustrates two general properties of low-resolution density distributions. First, a pronounced peak at low densities is due to background scattering. The protein density typically corresponds to a second, broader peak at higher densities. When integrating the histogram ``from the top down'', the known molecular volume of a protein can be used to compute its boundary density value. The volhist program also allows the user to add a constant value to the densities (bias) to shift the background density, and applies a factor to rescale the densities (gain). This can be done interactively to match densities between two input maps.

The input map(s) must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./volhist infile1 [[infile2] outfile]

Modes:
volhist infile1                      (print histogram)
volhist infile1 outfile              (rescale or shift densities)
volhist infile1 infile2 outfile      (match histogram of infile2 to that of infile1)

Interactive input at program prompt (if outfile specified):

  • Offset density value (bias, will be added to all voxels).
  • Scaling factor (gain)
  • You can automate this interactive program by "overloading" the standard input (if you put expected values in a script, see run_tutorial.bash script in the tutorials).

Interactive input at program prompt (if infile2 and outfile specified):

  • Surface isocontour levels for infile1 and infile2
  • Scaling factor (gain) is automatically computed based on input surface values.
  • Centering of the central peak of the trimodal difference histogram.
  • Offset density value (bias, will be added to all voxels), based on interactive centering.
  • For more information on the interactive matching procedure see (Wriggers et al., 2011).

Output:

  • (Program level:) Voxel histogram and fractional volume of volumetric data echoed to the screen. The histogram bars are normalized by the second highest density peak.
  • (Shell level:) If specified, a density map is written either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new density values are computed by adding the offset value and by multiplying the scaling factor entered at the program prompt, and setting any negative densities to zero. The new grid inherits all size and position parameters of the old grid.
volmult - Map / Mask Multiplication

Purpose:

The volmult utility allows one to compute the product of two volume data sets. This is useful e.g. when using a binary map (generated with voledit binary thresholding) as a mask. The input datasets can differ in their geometric parameters. If necessary the second input file is resampled to the grid of the first input file. Maps must be in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

Usage (at shell prompt):

./volmult file1 file2 outfile

file1:   inputfile 1, density map
file2:   inputfile 2, density map
outfile: outputfile, density map

Input at program prompt:

None.

Output:

Density map either in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (format based on file name extension: Situs if .sit or .situs, CCP4/MRC otherwise). The new density values are computed by multiplying the corresponding density values of file2 (which is resampled by trilinear interpolation, if necessary) to those of input file1. The output grid thus inherits the geometric parameters from file1.

voltrac - Alpha-Helix Detection and Filament Tracing

Purpose:

The voltrac ("volume tracer") utility can be used for detecting curved alpha-helices in intermediate resolution density maps using a genetic algorithm. For detailed usage information, motivation of the parameters, and examples see the new paper in J. Struct. Biol. by Mirabela Rusu and Willy Wriggers (click here for publication progress).

As described in the paper, negative densities are discarded (i.e. the map is thresholded at zero) after an (optional) local normalization step. Map densities can be shifted (if necessary) with volhist.

Basic usage (at shell prompt):

./voltrac <density map> -res <float> -ntraces <int> -expth <float> -nprocs <int>

The basic input parameters are:

<density map> Density map in Situs or CCP4/MRC format (auto detect). To convert other maps to either of these formats use the map2map utility.

-res <float> Estimated resolution of the density map in Å. [default: 8.0]

-ntraces <int> The number objects (i.e. alpha helices or filaments) to be traced. [default: 20]

-expth <float> Expansion threshold as percent (values between [0 100]). Decrease value for noisy maps. [default: 70]

-nprocs <int> The number of parallel threads on shared memory machines. [default: the number of cores of the CPU]

-ani <float> Resolution anisotropy factor (Z vs XY), typically ≥ 1. [default: 1.0]

-lambda <float> Orientation-dependent density attenuation parameter (Z vs XY), typically ≤ 1. [default: 1.0]


More advanced options (at shell prompt):

-locnorm <float> Apply local normalization (see paper) using sigma in voxel units. 0 - no local normalization is applied. [default: 2.5]

-postgauss <float> Gaussian smoothing after any local normalization, sigma in voxel units. 0 - no Gaussian smoothing is applied after any local normalization. [default: 1.5]

-popsize <int> Genetic algorithm population size (increase this number for large maps). [default: 100]

-maxgen <int> Maximum number of generations explored by the genetic algorithm (this is really only a hard limit of last resort, as the runs are usually stopped early by stop criteria) [default: 10000]

-syncgen <int> Generations explored before parallel population is synchronized [default: 100]

-garadius <float> Radius of the search template in Å [default: 2.0]

-galength <int> Length of the search template in Å [default: 20]

-expradius <float> Radius of the expansion template in Å [default: 1.0]

-explength <int> Length of the expansion template in Å [default: 8]

-distseg <float> Sampling step distance for search/expansion templates in Å [default: 1.0]

-taburad <float> Tabu region radius in Å [default: 6]

-expstep <float> Translation step of the template during the expansion in Å [default: 1.4]

-outtempl  Output the search and expansion templates [default: none]

Even more advanced options (using a configuration file):

The inner workings of the genetic algorithm and many more parameters can be controlled in detail using a parameter configuration file that can be edited by the user. For information on how to write and read such a configuration file, call voltrac with the -expert option.

Output:

All traces detected during the search as well as a ranked list of top -ntraces traces (see paper) will be written as PDB files to the output directory [default: voltrac_results]. Any parameter configuration file and output redirect (log file specified by a configuration file) will also be saved in this directory.
Header File and Library Routines

The suite of programs is supported by various header files (.h) containing user-defined parameters and by auxiliary library programs using C and C++ code. The library programs and their respective header files handle input and output of atomic coordinates in PDB format (lib_pio.c), input and output of volumetric data (lib_vio.c), input of data at the command prompt (lib_std.c), Euler angle generation (lib_eul.c), random number generation (lib_rnd.c), array management (lib_vec.c), Powell optimization (lib_pow.c), map manipulation (lib_vwk.c), PDB manipulation (lib_pwk.c), matchpt support (lib_mpt.cpp), volfltr and voltrac support (lib_sba.cpp and lib_svt.cpp), symmetric multiprocessing (lib_smp.c), and timing (lib_tim.c).
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