Flipbook Build Mode

The Flipbook Build Mode tool creates a flipbook animation from the entire contents of the modeling window including multi-window layouts (graphics), the current window only (window) or the plot window.

In Flipbook Build Mode, the Sweep or Animate buttons on all AcuFieldView surface and rake panels become Build buttons.

Specifically, the Sweep button on the Computational, Coordinate and Iso-Surface panels becomes a Build button, allowing you to easily create an animated surface sweep. The Animate button on the Streamlines and Particle Paths panels becomes a Build button allowing you to create an animated rake. And, the Sweep button on the Transient Data Controls panel becomes a Build button allowing you to easily create animated transient data. If multiple datasets are loaded, the Sweep button on the Dataset Controls panel will change to Build. This function is used to alternately display the datasets. Visibility will be cycled for each dataset in memory.

Click the Build button on the desired panel. The Building Flipbook pop-up reports progress as the animation is created in memory. When done, the Flipbook Controls panel opens up and can be used to play the animation or save it to a file. Specific examples will be shown in the following section describing how to control the extent of the sweep process.

Note that this form of animation only allows you to animate one object at a time. There is a special way to animate (interpolate) the view while streamlines are animating.

Controlling the Sweep Extent and Step Control

For surfaces and transient data, the number of frames created for the animation will be equal to the value of steps. For surfaces, this is the number of increments used to move the surface from the current min value to the current max value. Either or both of the min and max values can be adjusted by moving the sliders or by editing the Min and Max fields. This can be particularly useful when the region of interest in the dataset is of limited extent.

Example

An X coordinate surface was created. The Min value is set to -5500 and the Max value is set to 5500. The value of Steps is set to the default of 25, so the surface will sweep from -5500 to 5500 in 25 equal steps. Note also that the Sweep button has been replaced with a Build button. This is because Flipbook Build Mode has been turned on. To create this 25 frame animated surface sweep, click Build.