Creating an analysis movie

SeismoBuild provides users with the possibility of creating animations illustrating the way a particular structure, subjected to a given set of loads, deforms in pseudo-time (static analysis). In addition, users can also create a movie where the vibration mode of a structure (as obtained from eigenvalue analysis) is animatedly depicted. This facility can be accessed through the program main menu (Tools > Create AVI file….) or through the respective toolbar button .

For the case of static analysis animations, users need only to define the name of the movie file to be created (*.avi), the start and end deformed shapes, and the frequency in shape image selection. Evidently, the lower the frequency, the highest number of images will be used in the creation of the movie, and hence the higher the quality (smoothness of the moving sequence), but also the highest the size of the resulting file. The smallest possible frequency value is 1, effectively meaning that all deformed shapes that have been output will be used in the creation of the movie.

If, on the other hand, a user wishes to create a movie illustrating a given vibration mode of a particular structure, then he/she must define the number of mode cycles to be created (i.e. how many times will the modal animation be repeated) and the number of images/frames to be used per cycle. Evidently, the highest the number of interim frames, the smoothest the animation, but also the largest the movie file becomes.

Before creating the animation, users are advised to customise the 3D Plot to their needs and likings, since these settings will reflect the look and feel of the movie. In particular, it is noted that during movie creation, the axes of the plot are not automatically updated, thus implying that, before initiating the creation process, users should set the axes to their largest needed values. The latter can be done either by viewing an output shape where deformations are at their highest, or by manually tweaking the axes characteristics (using the 3D Plot options).

Once the animation has been created, users can verify its adequacy through the AVI Viewer incorporated in SeismoBuild, accessible from the program main menu (Tools > Show AVI file …) or through the respective toolbar button .

Animations created in SeismoBuild (i.e. AVI movies) can also be opened by other Windows applications such as Windows Media Player or, perhaps more importantly, Microsoft PowerPoint, where they can be used in multimedia presentations.