Energy Landscape

The Energy landscape analysis projects the energy of a path onto two saved scalar analyses. It is one of the most insightful Path Analyzer views because it lets you see where low-energy, high-population, or high-energy regions sit in an observable space that you define.

Adding the plot

1. Open Path Analyzer.
2. Create or reuse two saved scalar analyses in the Analysis Tray.
3. Choose Energy landscape in Observable.
4. Select exactly two saved scalar analyses in the tray.
5. Click Add Energy Landscape.

Inputs

• This is a derived analysis: it uses the Analysis Tray instead of direct atom selections.
• The two source analyses must be frame-wise scalar analyses computed on the same path.
• The path must also expose energy data for the covered frames.

View

• Energy landscape: a contour-style map of the path projected into the two chosen observables.

Key equations

If a bin \(B_{mn}\) contains the frames whose projected coordinates fall into the \((m,n)\)-th cell, Path Analyzer can summarize that bin by

\[ \bar{E}_{mn}=\frac{1}{|B_{mn}|}\sum_{k\in B_{mn}}E_k \]

or by the minimum sampled energy in that bin:

\[ E^{\min}_{mn}=\min_{k\in B_{mn}}E_k \]

Card settings

After creating the card, you can switch the displayed quantity between:

• Mean energy
• Minimum energy

You can also change:

• color scale
• contour-line visibility
• contour-line color
• energy unit

Tip

• Start from two observables that already separate the motion well, such as Distance and RMSD.
• Energy landscapes are especially helpful for identifying basins, transitions, and pathways between states.
• Compare the result with Custom scatter or 2D density map when you want to separate energy trends from raw sampling density.