EasyAnim

MBDyn exploits a special version of EasyAnim, based on 1.3 sources and patched by MBDyn developers; the patch is known to work under UN*X (GNU/Linux, essentially); it has not been tested with Windows, except with cygwin. It is available from the MBDyn web site, and it has been submitted to EasyAnim developers for evaluation. Check out MBDyn's web site for more information.

The preparation of the output is done via awk, which is invoked by the mbdyn2easyanim.sh script. It uses the .log and .mov files, and generates a pair of .vol and .van files which contain the model and the motion, respectively. Use

    mbdyn2easyanim.sh $filename

where $filename is the name of the output file from MBDyn, with no extension.

The above script generates a model based on the topology information contained in the .log file, plus the animation information according to the contents of the .mov file.

To check the model during preparation, run MBDyn with

    abort after: input;

in the <problem_name> section (pag ), so that the model is output in the input configuration, and EasyAnim can visualize it.

The model can be customized by supplying the mbdyn2easyanim.sh script additional awk code that adds nodes, edges and sides whose movement is associated to that of existing nodes.

For this purpose, one needs to write an awk script like

BEGIN {
    # add a node property
    nodeprop[nodeprop_num, "name"] = "dummy_node";   # node prop name
    nodeprop[nodeprop_num, "color"] = 4;             # color
    nodeprop[nodeprop_num, "radius"] = 1.;           # radius
    nodeprop_num++;

    # add a node
    node[node_num] = "added_node"                    # node name
    node[node_num, "relative"] = "base_node";        # base node name (label)
    node[node_num, 1] = 1.;                          # x in base node frame
    node[node_num, 2] = 2.;                          # y in base node frame
    node[node_num, 3] = 3.;                          # z in base node frame
    node[node_num, "prop"] = "dummy_node";           # node prop name
    node_num++;

    # add an edge property
    edgeprop[edgeprop_num, "name"] = "dummy_edge";   # edge prop name
    edgeprop[edgeprop_num, "color"] = 15;            # color
    edgeprop[edgeprop_num, "radius"] = 2.;           # radius
    edgeprop_num++;

    # add an edge
    edge[edge_num] = "added_edge";                   # edge name
    edge[edge_num, 1] = "node_1";                    # node 1 name
    edge[edge_num, 2] = "node_2;                     # node 2 name
    edge[edge_num, "prop"] = "dummy_edge";           # edge prop name
    edge_num++;

    # add a side property
    sideprop[sideprop_num, "name"] = "dummy_side";   # side prop name
    sideprop[sideprop_num, "color"] = 8;             # color
    sideprop_num++;

    # add a side
    side[side_num] = "added_side";
    side[side_num, "N"] = 4;
    side[side_num, 1] = "node_1";
    side[side_num, 2] = "node_2";
    side[side_num, 3] = "node_3";
    side[side_num, 4] = "node_4";
    side[side_num, "prop"] = "dummy_side";
    side_num++;
}

place it into a file, say custom.awk, and then invoke the interface script as

    mbdyn2easyanim.sh -f custom.awk $filename

No special parameters are available at the moment; this interface is under development.