Strategies for animating belt?

[Witz]

Hello,
I am working on the OSE D3D printer project animating assembly for a build workshop this Saturday so I am looking for a quick way to animate or give the illusion of animation of a belt. I am uncertain this is an ideal task for FreeCAD, but I am sure there are multiple ways. I thought I might just hide and move segments, but that may be slow and time-consuming and I am unsure how best to break it down.
I see the Draft BSpline function https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Draft_B ... #Scripting has some scripting options so I am wondering if it would be reasonable to script some vector math and how that might display if it can be timed well, et cetera or if I am way off?
For the purpose, it doesn't have to be perfect just close enough to convey information on how to manage the belt insertion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZhVIur ... unn&t=2365

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/File: ... belt.fcstd

Thanks for any recommendations,
--Abe

[chrisb]

The forum search delivers this: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=17372. Besides you might want to have a look at the documentation of animations at the home page: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Macros_recipes.
The animations I have made where all based on Sketches: You have to model your belt in a way that the motion can be controlled by a minimal set of constraints, in the best case just one. Using expressions they can depend on other constraints.
Finally you use python to control these controlling constraint(s) + a timer.

Saturday is sportive but possible, good luck!

[chrisb]

I had a look at your FreeCAD model. When you want to animate the whole assembly belt+XUniversalCarriage you have to move in addition to the belt the x-placement component of the carriage and of the nuts and bolts.

BTW: Opening your file shows lots of errors:

Code: Select all

unknown exception traceback><type 'exceptions.ImportError'>: No module named importPart
<unknown exception traceback><type 'exceptions.ImportError'>: No module named viewProviderProxies

[Witz]

Interesting,
Thanks for the info.

I went with a quick explosion bench and video editing method, but I do need to figure these options out for future use.

Anyone interested in Open Source Hardware Development can check out the Developers page at OSE. They need all kinds of Devs.
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_Developers

[microelly2]

I have done the animation with the animation wb
https://youtu.be/LLzM16N6aUY

the file is here https://www.dropbox.com/s/68l5k3f8dcil5 ... fcstd?dl=0

[Witz]

Oh wow, thanks for the demo microelly2 it is very informative. I'll definitely use this more. I plan to start doing some instructionals myself as I learn more FreeCAD while helping on OSE projects. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSkjo ... 2pg/videos

[Kunda1]

It could be useful for the animation WB to have a more intuitive workflow in regards to a button that is visible when wanting to initiate the animation control menu instead if just double clicking the tree elements...right?