#!F-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--18* #!N #!CSeaGreen #!N #!Ranimat Animation #!N #!EC #!N #!N The Sequencer tool is the primary device used in Data Explorer to produce animation or motion control. There are two basic types of animation: show a series of steps one after another, or, cause an object to move or rotate or change scale in order to study it from different points of view. #!N #!N Since many data sets are measured at a series of different times, your data may have a "time value" associated with each measurement set. There are two ways to read in these time step data files in order to study the dynamic process you have measured. #!N #!N In one scheme, you can collect all your data files into a #!F-adobe-times-medium-i-normal--18* Series #!EF , a special Group of Fields understood by Data Explorer. Each Series member can represent a data collection event at a certain time. Series do not have to be based on time; you may have a set of experimental measurements made at different voltages (e.g., a voltage series). Each series member is assumed to have the same type (scalar, vector, etc.) and the same dimensionality (2-D, 3-D, etc.), but the data and even the grid size or number of connections and positions may be different for each Series member. The Series Field is described in detail in #!Lsergrp,dxall262 h Series Groups #!EL . Series "values" do not have to be continuous but may represent useful information like the actual voltage setting for that Series entry (0.04, 2.3, 13.4). Series members are accessed by their ordinal position, starting at 0, regardless of their "value." #!N #!N Another way to organize a collection of associated data files is to create individual files for each time step (or voltage measurement, etc.). Give each file a filename containing an ordinal number so you can access them easily with a computer program (e.g., myfield.001.dx, myfield.002.dx, and so on). Each file will contain the Field to be imported at each time step. #!N #!N In either case (Series Field or separately numbered files), you can control when a particular time step is visualized in a visual program using the Sequencer tool. This tool emits a series of integers. You set the minimum, maximum, and increment, as well as choosing to start at a specific number (so you can jump ahead in the series if you like). The Sequencer can be connected to the Import module to specify which Series member to read in from the specified input file at the next iteration. Alternately, you could Import the Series Group file with Import, then use the Select module. Select takes an integer input (from Sequencer, for example) to choose the appropriate series member. #!N #!N If you choose to use separate files for separate data samples, you would likely want to use the Sequencer as an input to a Format module. The Format module could construct the filename with a format string like %s%03d%s along with three inputs, "myfield.," the output of the Sequencer, and ".dx." Then, when the Sequencer emits the integer "2," the output string from Format becomes "myfield.002.dx." This can be fed into Import as the name of the .dx file to read. The result is that you can use the Sequencer to specify either any specific file or a whole series of files to import and image one after another. #!N #!N Another common type of animation is to use the Sequencer to control object motion. Usually, this requires that you run the output of Sequencer through at least one Compute module. For instance, you can rotate an object around the Y-axis one full revolution by employing the Rotate module. The smaller the angular increment, the smoother the animation will appear, but there is a trade-off in apparent motion rate if your graphics workstation is not very fast. So you may have to adjust the incremental angular amount to your liking. #!N #!N You will find the technique of wiring Interactors to Compute modules useful for converting the output of Sequencer to arbitrary floating-point values. If you wanted to vary the Scale of your object using the Scale module, it might be more convenient to adjust the scale in increments of 0.01. With a little thought, you can extend this idea so that the same (one and only) Sequencer integer series can be converted into several different series of numbers that can simultaneously rotate, scale, and read in different time steps of data. Just a caution, though: too much changing at the same time will probably not help you visualize your data, but instead will cause confusion. Is the object getting bigger because the data values are increasing, or because you are changing the scale, or because you are moving the object closer to you with Translate? When you start out, keep your animations simple and they will be much more effective. #!N #!N #!N #!F-adobe-times-medium-i-normal--18* Next Topic #!EF #!N #!N #!Lannot,dxall599 h Annotation #!EL #!N #!F-adobe-times-medium-i-normal--18* #!N
Generated by dwww version 1.15 on Sat Jun 22 12:51:28 CEST 2024.