Creating the Animation

Now we can create our Dashboard animation. We will use two image graphic primitives, one to represent the ball, and another to provide a background to make the animation more interesting.

Procedure

1. In the Dashboard editor select the Basic Shapes Toolbox, and click on the Image graphic primitive.

When you move your cursor over the Scene, it takes the form of the selected graphic primitive.

2. Click in the Scene. The Image graphic primitive is placed in the Scene.

Note that the Object inspector now contains the properties of the selected graphic primitive. This image will provide the background for our animation.

3. In the Object inspector, double-click the Value field of the ImageFile property. The field is now editable, and you can click the browse button to locate a suitable image file.

4. Browse to locate the grass.svg file which is available in the $AME\tutorial\Icons directory of your Simcenter Amesim installation.

When you click Open, the image appears in the Dashboard: Figure 8: The image in the Dashboard

You can use the green manipulators at each corner of the image to enlarge the image. You will need to stretch it vertically and horizontally to provide sufficient room for the animation, but you can always do this later on. Now we will place the image for the ball.

5. Place a new Image graphic primitive in the Scene, on top of the grass image:

6. Associate the new graphic primitive with the Soccer_ball.svg icon:

Now we can link the Dashboard animation with our Simcenter Amesim results.

7. Position the Dashboard editor so that you can also see the main Simcenter Amesim window.

8. Make sure the Soccer_ball graphic primitive is selected (with its properties visible in the Object inspector), and drag and drop the post-processed variable we created earlier from Simcenter Amesim onto the y Value field:

If you hover your mouse cursor over the field, you will see the post-processed variable’s title in the tooltip.