Animation

The Animation PropertyManager enables you to animate a plot and save the animation as an .avi file.

• Basics

• • Play . Starts the animation from the current frame.

  • Pause . Stops the animation at the current frame.

  • Stop . Resets the animation to the starting frame.

  • Frames . Sets the number of frames to be used in animation. Linear interpolation is used to determine frames. Not used for transient thermal, nonlinear, or drop test analyses.

  • Speed . Controls the speed of the animation. Drag the slider to the right for faster animation or to the left for slower animation.

  • Forward Only . Select to play the animation forward one time.

  • Loop . Select to play the animation in a continuous looping pattern. It will play from start to end, then start to end again, and continue to repeat.

  • Reciprocate . Select to play the animation in a continuous reciprocating pattern. It will play from start to end, then end to start, and continue to repeat.

• Options (available only for transient thermal, nonlinear, dynamic and drop test analyses)

• • Start . Sets the time step associated with the first frame to be used in animation. Note that the real frame time appears next to that field.

  • End . Sets the time step associated with the last frame to be used in animation.

  • Increment . Sets the increment between time steps to define animation frames.

  • Frames before impact . Sets the number of frames to be played in the animation before the object hits the impact plane. You can exclude those frames by entering 0 in this field. You can include up to 20 frames before impact in the animation. This parameter is available only for drop test studies.

• Save as AVI File

• • Option. Sets the compressor to be used.

  • Browse. Click to specify a name and location of the animation file.

  • View with Media Player. Select to view the animation using the Microsoft® Media Player©.