Beautiful Atoms

GPU-backed Blender/Cycles renders for polished molecular stills, turntables, trajectory movies, and batch visual checks.

Workflow

Upload a structure file or folder under /inputs.
Use the New Job form for stills, turntables, trajectory animations, and batch modes.
Outputs are written under /outputs/images, /outputs/frames, /outputs/animations, and optionally /outputs/scenes.

Inputs

Common structure formats: .pdb, .ent, .cif, .mmcif, .xyz, .extxyz, .cube, .vasp.
Batch modes scan the selected file's folder recursively for supported structures.
The guided form defaults to Auto style: ribbon for PDB/mmCIF protein-like inputs, ball-and-stick for atomistic structures.

Important service behavior

The service launches Blender in background mode and runs /ref/bin/batoms_subseq.py.
Rendering uses Cycles GPU defaults plus the studio look by default: softer lighting, a white/off-white background, and tighter camera framing.
Advanced raw args may override device behavior, but the guided form keeps hardware choices service-owned.
Animation videos are encoded from PNG frames with ffmpeg.
Every job writes /outputs/metadata.json.

Arguments

--input: file or folder under /inputs.
--output: normalized to /outputs.
--mode: still, turntable, trajectory, batch_stills, or batch_turntables.
--style: space_filling, ball_stick, stick, ribbon, or polyhedral.
--background: black, white, gray, or transparent.
--look: studio or classic.
--resolution: square pixels or WIDTHxHEIGHT.
--samples: Cycles samples per frame.
--frames: turntable frame count or trajectory frame cap.
--fps: animation playback rate.
--video-format: mp4 or webm.
--viewport: still/trajectory camera vector, for example 1,-0.55,0.35.
--padding: camera framing padding; lower values fill the frame more tightly.
--elevation: turntable camera z component.
--batch-limit: maximum batch structures; 0 means all.
--show-unit-cell: show crystal cell information when available.
--save-blend: write a Blender scene file for each structure.

Still image

--input=/inputs/complex.pdb
--mode=still
--style=ribbon
--background=white
--look=studio
--resolution=1600
--samples=96
--padding=2.0

Turntable animation

--input=/inputs/complex.cif
--mode=turntable
--style=ball_stick
--background=white
--look=studio
--resolution=1600
--samples=96
--frames=72
--fps=24
--video-format=mp4
--padding=2.0

Batch stills

--input=/inputs
--mode=batch_stills
--style=space_filling
--background=white
--resolution=768
--samples=32
--batch-limit=25