Pmv Session Files:

With Pmv 1.5.6 we introduced a new session file that no longer relies on log string and playing back the entire session, which was error prone and time consuming.

The new session file is self-contained. It can be sent to another user and will restore the session. The file contains a python script that will issue all Pmv command needed to create molecular geometry and configure them to reproduce Pmv’s state when the session was saved. Vision networks will be saved and restored.

Session files are tar gzip’ed files saved with a .psf (Pmv Session File) extension.

NOTE: Molecules that were read from a PDBQ, PDBQT and PDBQS file are saved in their original format. All other molecules are currently saved as PDB files. This can lead to loss of information for mol2 files for instance.

Only ‘ATOM’, ‘HETATM’, ‘CONECT’ records are currently saved for molecules in a session file. This can lead to potential loss of information. For instance a molecule read from a PDB file with secondary structure records will miss these records when it is restored from a session file, hence secondary structure elements will be assigned programmatically and might differ from the PDB records.

NOTE: currently some representation will not restore in a session file, including: splines, CA traces, distance, angles and torsion measures, iso surfaces of volumetric data.

NOTE: geometry that was not created by PMV (e.g. created using Vision) will not be restored.

KNOWN BUG: Pmv molecules used in Vision networks do not restore