Gears

The Gears panel allows you to create a constraint that relates the motion of two joints.

1. From the Project Browser, select the system to which the gear is to be added.
2. Right-click on a system in the Project Browser and select Add > Constraint > Gear from the context menu.
   OR
   Right-click on a gear folder in the Project Browser and select Add Gear from the context menu.
   OR
   From the Model ribbon, click the Gears icon.
   The Add Gear dialog is displayed.
3. Specify a label and variable name.
   By default, variables names of entities in MotionView follow a certain convention. For example, all gear entities have a variable name starting with “gear_”. This is the recommended convention to follow when building models in MotionView since it has many advantages in model editing and model manipulation.
4. Click OK to close the window or Apply to continue creating entities.
   Once a gear entity has been added to the model, the panel for the gear will automatically be displayed in the panel area.

1. If the Gears panel is not currently displayed, select the desired gear by clicking on it in the Project Browser or in the modeling window.
   The Gears panel is automatically displayed.
2. Click the Joint 1 collector and the select the first joint to be constrained by the coupler from the modeling window, or double-click the collector to open the Model Tree (from which the desired entity can be selected).
3. In the same manner, click the Joint 2 collector and select the second joint to be constrained by the coupler.
4. Click the Point collector (under Origin) and select the location at which the constraint will be placed.
5. Click the Point collector (under Alignment) and select a point to define the direction of the gear, or, using the drop-down menu to the left of the collector, select Vector and choose a vector to direct the gear.