VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Fri Apr 20 2012 - 16:37:56 CDT

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 4:35 PM, Engelman, Joshua
<joshengelman_at_vistamarschool.org> wrote:
> I'm new to VMD and molecular dynamics in general, and generated some
> simulations using  HOOMD-Blue.  It outputs a .xml hoomd-file and .dcd, which
> I've been able to successfully import on a macintosh.  However, working from
> a PC with the same version of VMD (32 bit, 1.9.1), VMD cannot recognize or
> import the filetype, despite being officially supported since 1.8.7.  There
> is currently no port of Kohlmeyer's plugin for Windows, as far as I know.
>  Is there any way to fix this?  I have tried both OpenGL and CUDA versions,
> on a machine that supports both, and neither works.  Is there a way around
> this?

there is no official support on windows, since the hoomd plugin for
VMD was written using the expat library (XML is such a horrible file
format, that writing a fully compliant, self-contained, *and* somewhat
efficient parser from scratch is a punishment i don't wish upon my
worst enemies) and that would require to have another library
compiled and bundled with VMD.

i know that people have successfully compiled both expat and
the hoomd plugin on windows as dynamical shared object.
there should be nothing in the code that would make it incompatible.

i don't use windows, so i cannot help you much with that
outside of trying to trick the plugin to be cross-compiled
from linux. if you have sufficient experience in dealing with
DSOs/DLLs on windows and can test and document the
procedure necessary, i am willing to give it a try. just contact
me off-list and we can discuss it. if you have native
development tools on windows, you can also try it yourself.

axel.

>
> Joshua E.
> University of Michigan 

-- 
Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer
akohlmey_at_gmail.com  http://goo.gl/1wk0
College of Science and Technology
Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA.