Animation advice

I am a Design Engineer relitivley conversant in SW. I have basic knowledge
of SW animation but I would like to animate a machine from start op to
finish op.

This would include animating chains, links and conveyors.

Does SW animation have the ability to do this? Or would I have to purchase
third party software?
If so which one?


Cheers.

 

Animator is good for mechanisms where the motion is fairly constrained.
Chains will be a challenge. That's already true in SW without even
considering Animator, though. Doing a large machine taking a part
through an entire cycle is entirely possible, depending on what type of
processes you have. It may work best as a compilation of several
different animations. Animator works best when you can change something
like a mate distance or angle value and animate that changing over time.
If say a box has to be folded and moved down a conveyor, then flipped
or labeled or whatever, it may take some inventiveness to make it all
happen, and will probably be best as several small animations pasted
together with an editor.

 

John, if you can afford to run a beta version of SolidWorks 2007, there
is new functionality in this area to help you do what you want to do.

http://beta.solidworks.com

Regards

Mark Biasotti
SolidWorks

 

then again - we are not supposed to talk about it or use it for production
purposes are we? ;o)