Animating Images

Image animation is a continuous display of a sequence of frames obtained from a given image. Each frame represents either the final result displayed with a different amplitude or a particular point in time during a transient simulation. The frames are displayed in rapid succession, creating a movie-like effect. If the image was created for a Step object, the animation displays results from that step; if the image was created for the entire Analysis Case Solution object, the animation displays results from every step in the analysis except for frequency steps and static perturbation steps.

This task shows you how to animate images.

  1. Select an image object in the specification tree to make it active.

  2. Click the Animate icon in the Analysis Tools toolbar.

    The Animate dialog box appears, and the image is animated in the main window with the default animation parameters.

  3. You can modify the animation parameters as desired.

    • Control the animation play:

      • Jump to the beginning

      • Play backward

      • Step backward

      • Pause

      • Step forward

      • Play forward

      • Jump to the end

    • Select the loop mode:

      • Play once straight through

      • Play the images in order from the first to the last, repeatedly

      • Play the images in order from the first to the last and then in reverse order from the last back to the first, repeatedly

    • Specify the number of separate images to include in the animation by selecting a number from the Steps number drop-down list.

    • Control the animation speed by dragging the Speed slider to the desired value.

    For a smooth animation set the number of images to the maximum value (20) and select the Repeat Play and Reverse loop mode.

  4. Click More in the Animate dialog box to see additional animation options.

    • Select the analysis step increments to include in the animation:

      • All occurrences animates the image over every increment in the analysis step. When you select this type of animation, you can choose whether or not to memorize the frames. If Memorize frames is toggled on, the animation will be faster but consume more memory.

      • One occurrence animates the image over a single selected increment in the analysis step by applying a range of scale factors to the analysis results. Click Select to access the Increments dialog box.

    • Select the animation mode for animations occurring over a single increment:

      • Nonsymmetrical animation (default): This animation mode corresponds to a half-cycle scale factor range from 0 to 1.

      • Symmetrical animation: This animation mode corresponds to a full-cycle scale factor range from –1 to 1.

    • Specify the interpolation method for nonsymmetrical animations:

      • Interpolate values animates over the interpolated values of the selected image.

      • Interpolate displacements animates over the interpolated displacements of the selected image.

  5. Click Close in the Animate dialog box to exit animation mode.