animate [-w posx posy] [-p] [-b] [-s speed] [-o] [-S script]
[-hide] [-f file1 file2 ... ]
Animate is an interactive animation tool specifically designed to be used with Geomview. It provides several simple animation controls such as looping, bouncing, and single frame stepping, as well as adjustable speed playing. The program works by telling geomview to read in a sequence of geomview files and then telling geomview to display each frame of the sequence in order. Animate runs only on Silicon Graphics machines.
There are two methods that Animate provides for specifying which frames one wants to have in the sequence being viewed. The first method is to enter the name of every frame into the text input box and press return or click on load. The name of each frame must correspond with the name of a geomview file existing in the file system.
EXAMPLES
pict1 pict2 pict3 pict4
pict*
pic??
The second method of loading frames is to first create an animation script file outside of animate and then load the script in by typing its name in the input box and clicking on the script button. The advantage of this method is that you can more easily specify the exact order in which you want the frames to be shown. The format of the script file is a list of frame names each followed by a newline. Comments prepended by a # sign are allowed.
EXAMPLE SCRIPT FILE
# list of frames for
# my rotating cube movie
cube.02
cube.04
cube.03 # get rid of this frame later
cube.01
.
.
.
cube.90
Loading frames into memory may take a little time, especially if each frame is a particularly large file. Be sure the machine you're using has sufficient memory to load all the frames you desire. Once all frames have been loaded, an 'animate' object will appear in the geomview object browser. It is now possible to begin animating.
Scrolling through frames can be accomplished in several different ways. The first, and most obvious way is by 'playing' the frames. Clicking on the play button will cause animate to begin playing through the frames in order, starting with the first frame or whichever frame has been selected. The corresponding name of each frame being shown is outlined in red. Clicking on stop will cause animate to stop playing the frames.
The speed at which frames are animated depends on the size and complexity of the object in each frame. Thus different sequences can have considerably different top playing speeds. If the sequence is playing too quickly, the speed of play can be adjusted to be slower using the speed slider. Playing slowly through the frames can also be accomplished by holding one of the two step buttons down. Also, clicking on either step button will cause future playing to go in the same direction as that step.
To provide further control on direction and sequence of play, the bounce and loop features may be used. To enter bounce mode, click on the bounce button. While animate is in bounce mode, whenever the first or last frame is reached direction of play automatically reverses. This allows bouncing back and forth between the frames at each end of the sequence.
Clicking on loop puts animate in looping mode. In looping mode animate only shows frames from a certain subset of all frames in the sequence. To specify which frames you want included in this subset, you outline each frame by clicking on it or dragging across it. Being in both looping and bouncing mode simultaneously will cause animate to bounce back and forth between the first and last frames in the subset of frames.
Clicking on 'once' puts animate in 'once' mode where a sequence of frames is played through only one time. Upon reaching the first or last frame (depending on which direction you are going) of a specified sequence, while in this mode, animate will stop playing. Normal playing can be resumed by clicking on 'once' again and exiting this mode.
The info button will bring up a short menu containing helpful hints for program usage. Clicking on the exit button will cause the program to exit.
When loading sequences one after another, geomview will often not load a sequence on the first try. This can often be remedied by telling animate to load the sequence yet again.
Daeron Meyer email: daeron@geom.umn.edu The Geometry Center phone: (612) 626-8307 1300 South Second Street Minneapolis, MN 55454