KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
KeyCreator Lesson KC7407
Adding Dwells to an Animation
In this exercise, we’ll add dwells to the
animation produced in lesson KC7406.
In many cases, rotary dials will not
rotate continuously, but instead, rotate
a set number of degrees, dwell, then
rotate the same number of degrees
again, dwell, etc.
DWELL
A special drive mechanism is used to
generate the motion. The dwells are
synchronized with loading and
unloading of parts from nests, or
tooling actions on parts in nests.
Let’s open up the “KC7406” file that you
saved at the end of lesson KC7406.
Your screen should look like this:
Now, let’s suppose that at each 45 degree index of the dial, we’d like the turntable to
pause for a short time before starting the next 45 degree rotation. How can we easily
accomplish that? I’m going to show you a simple trick that doesn’t involve any
programming knowledge. (Programmers in my audience might chuckle at what we’re
about to do. For non-programmers, however, it works really well and is very simple to
understand.)
First, let’s take a moment to create a small cylinder in the
center of the pivot hole on the turntable. (The location isn’t
really important, but it won’t be in the way there and will
look like part of our design!)
My cylinder is 0.5 diameter by 1 high.
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KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
Next, click on the TOOLS Pulldown Menu.
Click on the GROUP Option and then on the
MAKE Option.
Type “timer” for the group name.
Select the cylinder that you just made and hit
the ENTER Key. Then, hit the ESC Key.
Recording the macro
Click on the RECORD KXL MACRO Icon.
A Dialog Box appears.
Type “rotoslide” and click on the SAVE Button.
You are warned that the macro exists. Click on the
YES Button. (We’re going to just record over the
original macro.)
You are now in recording mode.
Click on the XFORM ROTATE MOVE Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and
then on the ByName Option.
Type “rotor” and hit the ENTER Key.
Click on the Group Option again. Type “slide” and hit
the ENTER Key twice.
Now, click on the KeyIn Option.
Hit the ENTER Key three times. Then, hit the ENTER
Key twice, type 1 and hit the ENTER Key once more.
Type 45 for the angle and hit the ENTER Key. Then,
click on the ESCAPE Button. Notice that the turntable
and slide rotate 45 degrees.
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KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
Next, click on the XFORM DELTA MOVE Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and then on
the ByName Option. “Type “slide” and hit the ENTER Key
twice.
Hit the ENTER Key twice, type –2.5, and hit the ENTER Key
once more. Then, click on the ESCAPE Button.
Now, click on the XFORM DELTA COPY Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and then on
the ByName Option.
Type “timer” and hit the ENTER Key twice.
Type 7 for the Number of Copies and hit the ENTER Key.
Then, hit the ENTER Key three times. (This place the copies all
in the same spot.)
Now, immediately click on the UNDO Icon. (We don’t really want the
copies cluttering our file. WE just want the computer to take time making
them!)
Click on the XFORM ROTATE MOVE Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and
then on the ByName Option.
Type “rotor” and hit the ENTER Key.
Click on the Group Option again. Type “slide” and hit
the ENTER Key twice.
Now, click on the KeyIn Option.
Hit the ENTER Key three times. Then, hit the ENTER
Key twice, type 1 and hit the ENTER Key once more.
Type 45 for the angle and hit the ENTER Key. Then,
click on the ESCAPE Button. Notice that again the
turntable and slide rotate 45 degrees.
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KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
Next, click on the XFORM DELTA MOVE Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and then on
the ByName Option. “Type “slide” and hit the ENTER Key
twice.
Hit the ENTER Key twice, type 2.5, and hit the ENTER Key
once more. Then, click on the ESCAPE Button.
Now, click on the XFORM DELTA COPY Icon.
Click on the Group Option on the Conversation Bar and then on
the ByName Option.
Type “timer” and hit the ENTER Key twice.
Type 7 for the Number of Copies and hit the ENTER Key.
Then, hit the ENTER Key three times. (This place the copies all
in the same spot.)
Now, immediately click on the UNDO Icon.
Finally, click on the RECORD KXL MACRO Icon
to end the recording.
Now since the rotoslide macro is already bound to a
hot key, you can just go ahead and run it. (The
binding is to the name of the macro, not what is
inside it. In fact, when developing ideas many users
take advantage of this by assigning a key to a
dummy macro. (For instance, the “q” key.) Then,
whenever they want to experiment, they record a
test macro in the file “q” overwriting what was there before. The moment the recording is
done, they hit the “q” key to play the macro.
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KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
Now, touch the hot key assigned to the rotoslide macro and the turntable table moves two
position with up and down slide travel. Notice the slight pause at each station. If you hold
the key down for a second you get motion with slight pauses at each station.
Now, open up the rotoslide.kxl file in a line
editor like Wordpad or Notepad. (Remember
to select the All Files Option.)
Scroll down till you see the line circled in red
in the illustration to the left. Highlight the line
and Right Mouse Click. Select the COPY
Option from the menu that appears.
Now, scroll to the top of the macro file.
Click on the EDIT Pulldown Menu and then on
the REPLACE Option.
A Dialog Box appears. Paste (CTRL+V Hot
Key) what you copied into both fields.
Now, edit the 7 in the Replace With Field and
make it 50. This will give you a longer dwell.
Then, click on the Replace All Button. This will
edit all timing dwells in the file. (We only have
two in this macro, but you could have a fancier
macro with more dwells.) Click on the FILE
SAVE Option to save the edits.
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KEYCREATOR 3D Direct Modeling Software
Now, when you run the macro,
you will see a longer dwell at
each station.
Now a veteran programmer
might chuckle at our little timing
mechanism, but for my nonprogrammers who need to make
simple animations, it provides a
fast an effective way to add
another dimension to an
equipment animation.
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