superpose3d

Note: There is a C++ version of this repository here.

Usage

def Superpose3D(X,    # <-- Nx3 array of coords for the "frozen" point cloud
                x,    # <-- Nx3 array of coords for the "mobile" point cloud
                w = None, #<- optional weights for the calculation of RMSD
                          #   (default w[n] = 1 for all n)
                allow_rescale=False)  #<--attempt to rescale mobile point cloud?

Superpose3D() takes two ordered lists (or numpy arrays) of xyz coordinates (of the same length, N) representing points in a point cloud (X and x). Treating them as rigid objects, "Superpose3D()" attempts to superimpose them using rotations, translations, and (optionally) scale transformations in order to minimize the root-mean-squared-distance (RMSD) between corresponding points from either point cloud, where RMSD is defined as:

If w_n are omitted (ie. if w_n = None), then equal weights are used. In that case:

...where:

   T_j  = a translation vector (a 1-D numpy array containing x,y,z displacements),
   R_ij = a rotation matrix    (a 3x3 numpy array whose determinant = 1),
    c   = a scalar             (a number, 1 by default)

This function returns a 4-tuple containing the optimal values of:

   (RMSD, T, R, c)

This function implements a more general variant of the method from this paper: R. Diamond, (1988) "A Note on the Rotational Superposition Problem", Acta Cryst. A44, pp. 211-216.

This version has been augmented slightly to support scale transformations. (I.E. multiplication by scalars. This can be useful for the registration of two different annotated volumetric 3-D images of the same object taken at different magnifications.)

Note that if you enable scale transformations (i.e. if allow_rescale=True), you should be wary if the function returns a negative c value. Negative c values correspond to inversions (reflections). For this reason, if you are using this function to compare the conformations of molecules, you should probably set allow_rescale=False. This will prevent matching a molecule with its stereoisomer.

Installation using pip

pip install .
pip install -r requirements.txt

Later, you can uninstall superpose3d using:

pip uninstall superpose3d

Requirements

superpose3d depends on numpy

License

superpose3d is available under the terms of the MIT license.