SOLIDWORKS Visualize Auto Animation

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There are a few different animating tools within Visualize Professional but in this blog we will use the watch to illustrate the power of the automatic rotation animations, a method of doing quick and easy rotation animations with little effort. This can be great for things such as car wheels or in this instance, watch hands. In the following video you can see the hands moving round. This is done with just a couple of clicks but will make your designs pop and come to life.

Step 1:

To start any animation off you need to view the timeline. This can be found in View > Show timeline or CNTL + L as a shortcut.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

Step 2:

Ensure your tree structure is suitable and you can select the parts you need with nothing you don’t want to be rotated being accidentally selected.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

Step 3:

Find the parts you want to rotate (in this case I want to rotate my watch hands), and right click and select ‘Add rotation Animation’. This will add you rotation to the timeline under whatever you named your parts as plus ‘Rotation Animation’ so you may want to rename your parts before adding your animation.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

Step 4:

If you select the keys you can simply input the start or end times for this rotation. If you select the coloured space in-between the keys the animation properties appear on the right hand side of the timeline where you can edit things such as ‘Total Rotation’ and the ‘Axis of rotation’ as well as Ease In and Ease out which means you can make your parts accelerate and decelerate.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

NOTE: You can also add a rotation animation to cameras so if you wanted to rotate a selected camera around an axis by certain degrees it is easy to do so. All you need to do is right click on a camera in the camera tab and select ‘Add Rotation Animation’. This adds this rotation to your timeline and you can edit these in the same manner as the part animations.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Animation

By Chris Green

Applications Engineer

Models edited from:

• Kalle K – https://grabcad.com/library/f360-demo-watch-1

• Steen Winther – https://grabcad.com/library/eta-6497-1-complete-watch-movement

 

*Use your SolidWorks Professional or Premium license number to activate Visualize Standard which you can download for free from here.

Solid Solutions Technical Team

Solid Solutions Technical Team

Solid Solutions Management Ltd was founded in 1998, originally as a SOLIDWORKS training and support provider. Now a Group with over 20 offices across the UK and Ireland, Solid Solutions is not only the leading SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD reseller in both regions, it also offers expert professional design solutions and consultancy services to more than 15,000+ customers. With over 200 employees and the largest SOLIDWORKS technical team in the world, Solid Solutions is focused on growth and on its customers’ development and success.
Solid Solutions Technical Team