Mechanical APDL Basic Analysis Guide

Chapter 17: Animation

Animation is a valuable tool for graphically interpreting many analysis results, especially nonlinear or

time-dependent behavior. The ANSYS program provides tools that enable you to animate any type of

display.

Many workstations, PCs, and some terminals having local segment memory support animation. However,

some hardware platforms do not support online animation well (or at all). An alternative to online an-

imation is to capture a sequence of images offline, frame by frame, on film or videotape.

The following animation topics are available:

17.1. Creating Animated Displays Within ANSYS

17.2. Using the Basic Animation Commands

17.3. Using One-Step Animation Macros

17.4. Capturing Animated Display Sequences Off-Line

17.5. The Stand Alone ANIMATE Program

17.6. Animation in the Windows Environment

17.1. Creating Animated Displays Within ANSYS

The easiest way to perform animation in ANSYS is to use the functions available under Utility Menu>

PlotCtrls> Animate. These GUI functions allow you to achieve "push-button animation" effects in ANSYS.

The GUI functions internally execute ANSYS animation commands, which you can type in directly if you

prefer. Procedures for using commands are discussed next. See External Graphics (p. 295) for information

on viewing animated sequences in the stand-alone DISPLAY program.

17.2. The Animation Controller

You can display several frames in rapid succession to achieve an animation effect, via these commands:

Command(s):/SEG,ANIM

GUI: Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Redirect Plots> Delete Segments

Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Redirect Plots> Segment Status

Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Redirect Plots> To Segment Memory

(Linux)

Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Redirect Plots> To Animation File

(Windows)

Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Animate> Replay Animation

Utility Menu> PlotCtrls> Animate> Replay Animation

The /SEG command allows you to store graphics data in the terminal's local "segment" (graphics oper-

ation) or "pixmap" (screen dot) memory (which may or may not be available, depending on the type

of graphics device you are using).The storage occurs at the same time that a graphics action command

produces a display. You can then use the ANIM command to display the stored frames in a sequence.

A typical command stream for animation would look like this:

/SEG,DELE! Deletes all currently stored segments

/SEG,MULTI! Stores subsequent displays in segment memory

...! Plot-creation commands to generate a sequence of images

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