Animation Tab

Fast Increment

Specify the number of frames to skip between each animation frame for Fast Forward and Fast Rewind. This allows you to speed up the viewing of motions that take many simulation steps to analyze. For example, if you want to animate every other frame, enter 2 in this text box. Enter 5 to display every fifth frame.

Start Frame, End Frame

Specify the frame numbers at which to start and stop the animation. This allows you to view a subset of a long animation. The first frame always shows the mechanism in its assembled state, and the second frame is the first frame of the animation. Therefore, the last frame is numbered 1 greater than the number of steps in the simulation. For example, if you perform a simulation with 10 output steps, the frames are numbered from 1 to 11.

Show Symbols during animation

• If checked, the symbols used for motion objects are displayed during the animation.

• If not checked, the symbols are hidden during the animation.

Show Contact Frames

• If checked, and the model contains 2D or 3D contacts, frames that were generated from the contact occurrence are included in the animation. This results in more frames than was specified for the simulation, and could lead to the animation looking uneven (because the frames may no longer be spaced at equal time increments).

• If not checked, the contact-induced frames are not shown.

Override Simulation Time

Toggles the use of VRML animation time.

• If cleared, the VRML animation time is the time of the simulation, which may result in missed frames or undesired animation lengths.

• If selected, the corresponding text box is enabled, allowing you to enter the length of time for the VRML animation.