Documentation

Animation Recording

The Simulink^® 3D Animation™ software enables you to record animations of virtual scenes that the Simulink or MATLAB^® product controls. You can record simulations using the Simulink 3D Animation Viewer. You can then play back these animations offline, in other words, independent of the MATLAB, Simulink, or Simulink 3D Animation products. You can generate such files for presentations, to distribute simulation results, or to generate archives.

You can save a frame snapshot (capture) of the current Simulink 3D Animation viewer scene. You can save this frame as either a TIF or PNG format file. For details, see Capture Frames.

Recording Formats

You can save the virtual world offline animation data in the following formats:

See the following topics:

File Names

By default, the Simulink 3D Animation Viewer records simulations or captures virtual scene frames in a file named with the following format:

%f_anim_%n.%e

This format creates a unique file name each time you capture a frame or record the animation. The file name uses the %f, %n, and %e tokens.

The %f token is replaced with the name of the virtual world associated with the model. The %n token is a number that increments each time that you record a simulation for the same virtual world. For example, if the name of the virtual world file is vrplanets.wrl and you record a simulation for the first time, the animation file is vrplanets_anim_1.wrl. If you record the simulation a second time, the animation file name is vrplanets_anim_2.wrl. In the case of frame captures, capturing another frame of the scene increments the number.

The %e token represents the virtual world 3D file extension (.wrl, .x3d, or .x3dv) as the extension of the virtual world that drives the animation. By default, the %e token uses the file extension of the virtual world 3D file that drives the animation. The VR Sink and VR Source block Source file parameter specifies the file extension of the virtual world.

You can specify other file name tokens. For details, see File Name Tokens.

Start and Stop Animation Recording

You can start or stop recording animations of the virtual world from the Simulink 3D Animation viewer through the menu bar, toolbar, or keyboard. This section assumes that you have specified animation files for recording the animation.

Play Animation Files

You can view animation files using the 3D Animation Player or vrplay. For details, see Play Animation Files.

Record 3–D Animation Files

To create a 3-D animation files from a Simulink model execution, set recording parameters. You can start the simulation before setting up the recording.

After you define an animation file, you can manually record simulations. See Start and Stop Animation Recording. If you want to record simulations on a schedule, see Schedule Files for Recording.

Record in Audio Video Interleave (AVI) Format

To create a 2-D AVI format file from a Simulink model execution, set recording parameters. You can start the simulation before setting up the recording.

After you define an animation file, you can record animations. See Start and Stop Animation Recording. If you want to record animations on a schedule, see Schedule Files for Recording.

Schedule Files for Recording

This topic describes how to schedule the recording of an animation using the MATLAB interface for a virtual world that is associated with a Simulink model. In this case, the timing in an animation file derives from the simulation time. One second of the recorded animation time corresponds to one second of Simulink time. To schedule the recording of an animation file, you preset the simulation time interval during which the animation recording occurs. This procedure uses the vrplanets example. It assumes that you have already configured the recording parameters for an animation file.

After you define the schedule, you can record simulations. See Start and Stop Animation Recording.