Solid Works 2005 animation 1

[GITRDone]

I was wondering if there was a way to make a short movie or something like that. That a salesman could use to showcase new products in motion? Without having to buy another seat and try and have them learn how to move the items needed, without looking like a fool. Just something that is simple for sales department. just a click and play type of animation.

 

[SBaugh]

If you have animator then you can do that with in SW and it will be saved as an AVI file for your sales person to push that little play button.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[GITRDone]

Thanks SBaugh I will look into that. I thought that there might be something along those lines but I have not been able to see it??? Is it an add on?

 

[Theophilus]

Animator is a module that comes as part of SolidWorks Office. You can also couple it with PhotoWorks to render the animation photorealistically. (I just completed a project of several animations.)

What sorts of things to you need to do? Some forms of motion can be fairly difficult to perform with Animator, whereas exploding an assembly or rotating a part for viewing is what Animator seems to be best at doing. Not that you cannot do complex animations--it's just that you'll probably need to get fairly creative to do so.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[GITRDone]

Theo,
just need to rotate items and open and close them.

That is why I cant find it, I dont have the office version :-(

 

[Theophilus]

Bummer. They changed Animator in moving to 2006 (for the better), so if you get support from your VAR, check into upgrading to Office instead of the purely basic version--might not be as expensive as you think.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

How about the SW Rx function?
Start > All Programs > SolidWorks > SolidWorks Tools

 

[Theophilus]

Hey, you could use eDrawings and show them how to use the Animate Views buttons within eDrawings to see the various views you created. Simple program, works on laptops without problems (from my experience), and shows what needs to be shown--including exploded geometry if you have an exploded view saved. Check it out and see if that would work for you.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[GITRDone]

that is what I gave them and they still screwed it up... but they wanted a way to animate it also. so that they didn't have to do anything. just click... Even one of the sales team deleated the program after I told them not to... GO FIGURE, SALES???? but thanks for the input. Going to talk to the owner about upgrading to 2006 or 2007???

Thanks again Theo..

 

[GITRDone]

CorBlimeyLimey what do you mean RX??? never heard of that.., will look into it. Unless you mean Drug the sales team....

 

[Theophilus]

You can purchase a separate screen-capture program and simply create an AVI (or other video file) of the eDrawings animation if you like, using the screen capture program.

Quick search:

http://www.etrusoft.com/screen-recorder/

http://www.easyscreencapturevideo.com/

That makes things fairly fool-proof. Of course, what would actually happen in the field is that someone will want to see something several times--but I guess you can do that will Windows Media Player without much difficulty. Who knows, it could be a cheap fix?



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Th Rx function is for use when troubleshooting problems. It creates a video (series of screen captures) when re-creating a problem for VARs or others to look at.

You should find it at Start > All Programs > SolidWorks > SolidWorks Tools

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Also check out the freebie at

http://www.camstudio.org/

 

[GITRDone]

thnaks CorBlimeyLimey

 

[Theophilus]

Oh yeah--I forgot about that--only had to use it once. Cool idea.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[GITRDone]

Many thanks to all for the help in this matter. Sales is happy now. they got their one click answer. Thanks again to CorBlimeylimey, took your idead and ran with it. But I think I will get the prez to pop for the latest version of SW Theo.