Previewing the Motion of Mechanisms

You can animate bodies and component assemblies by controlling the degrees of freedom of the joints enforced in the mechanism.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin: Create a mechanism for a physical product or component assembly.
Important: The bodies or component assemblies must be up-to-date. To do so, from the Standard section of the action bar, click Update and then click Initial State Solve .
See Also
Creating Mechanisms

Animate the Mechanism

  1. From the Mechanism section of the action bar, click Kinematics Player .
    The list of every degree of freedom you can animate appears under the Control View section of the dialog box.
  2. To modify the value of a degree of freedom, under the Control View section of the dialog box, you can either:
    • Move the slider.
    • Enter a value in the box.
      Note: For a joint defined manually, specify a value included between its minimum and maximum limits.
    • Use the arrows next to the box.

    The default value of the slider corresponds to the nominal value of the joint. The minimum and maximum values of the degree of freedom cannot be exceeded. If no minimum or maximum value is specified at the creation of the joint, default values are applied.

    Notes:
    • You cannot control or animate gear, rack, and cable joints.
    • You can only control the translation degree of freedom of a screw joint.

    The bodies included in the mechanism move according to the value of the controlled degrees of freedom .
  3. Optional: To display only some of the degrees of freedom to animate:
    1. Click Controlled degree of freedom under the Controls Positions section of the dialog box to show the list of degrees of freedom you can control in the mechanism.
    2. From the list, select the degrees of freedom to display in the Control View section of the dialog box.
    3. Optional: Click and select Select all or Deselect all to select or clear every check box.
    4. Click Manage Controlled Degree of Freedom to go back to the previous dialog box.
    The selected degrees of freedom appear under the Control View section of the dialog box.
  4. Optional: To lock or unlock the value of a degree of freedom , under the Controls Positions section of the dialog box, click Lock DOF or Unlock DOF .

    Note: To lock or unlock every controlled degree of freedom , at the top of the dialog box, click Lock All or Unlock All .

  5. Optional: Click Reset All to reset every controlled degree of freedom to its nominal value.
  6. Click OK.

    The initial value of the degrees of freedom is restored.