Creating animations that play an animated ABAQUS contour plot synchronized with a 2D x-y plot

1. Making sure you have the same number of contour frames as x-y data points is critical!
   
   To achieve one contour frame for each x-y data point in the step, make sure the step time divided by the field number interval is equal to the history time interval :
   
   
   
   
   NOTE: If you would like more x-y data points per contour frame, first calculate the history time interval as above, then divide it by the number of points you would like per contour frame. You will have to compensate for this later in Matlab by changing the frame data point interval.
   
   
2. Run your ABAQUS job then open the ODB file in ABAQUS viewer.
   
   
3. Create your combined x-y data set and export it as a text file. Make sure you uncheck the "Append to file" check box, and select the "Separate table for each XY data" radio box.
   
   
   
   
4. Select the field variable contour plot that you would like to animate by choosing "Result" --> "Field Output..." and then selecting the appropriate variable in the Filed Output dialog box.
   
   
   
   
5. Clean up the viewport by removing the title block and other items. Select "Viewport" --> "Viewport Annotation Options...". On each of the tabs of the dialog box, you have the option to hide the triad, the legend, the legend bounding box, the title block, and the state block.
   
   
   
   
6. Put the contour plot in "Animate: Time History" mode by selecting this button:
   
   
   
   
7. The animation will begin to play. Press the stop button in the animation controls.
   
   
   
   
8. To remove the frame counter, press "Animation Options..." in the lower right corner of the Viewer window. In the dialog, clear the "Show Frame Counter" option.
   
   
9. To hide the contour mesh, press "Contour Options..." in the lower right corner of the Viewer window. On the "Basic" tab select "Feature edges" in the Visible edges section.
   
   
10. To fix the legend so that its max and min values don't change during the animation, on the "Limits" tab of the "Contour Options..." dialog box, set the Max and Min values for the legend... do not select "Auto Compute".
    
    
    
    
11. ABAQUS records every pixel that is visible in the viewport when it creates an animation file. Arrange the contour plot in the viewport so that it is visible throughout the entire animation. Resize the viewport to minimize the black space around the contour plot.
    
    
    
    
12. Save the animation to file. Select "Animate" --> "Save As..." from the menu. Clear the "Capture viewport decorations" field. Enter the file name. Choose the "QuickTime" format. In "QuickTime Options..." be sure that "Use size on screen" is checked.
    
    
    
    
    

1. Obtain a copy of the animate_plot.m and importAbaqus.m Matlab functions, and move them to a place where Matlab can find them
   
   
2. Open the animate_plot.m file and edit it to suit your needs. The sections that you should not edit are clearly marked. Some things that you may want to change include:
   • data scaling factor (e.g. scaling from N to kN)
   • axis limits
   • frame data point interval (number of x-y data points per frame, default = 1)
   • axis labels and plot title
   • line widths and colors
   • output file name
     
     
3. Open Matlab and run the script by typing "animate_plot(path_to_rpt_file)" at the prompt. Do not cover the figure with other windows or you may record those instead.
   
4. When the script is finished, it will output some information about the movie file that was created. Write down the Height and Width, you will need these numbers later in Corel RAVE. Example output:

   ans =

   Filename: 'mymovie.avi'
   FileSize: 70564864
   FileModDate: '02-Apr-2004 17:46:43'
   NumFrames: 100
   FramesPerSecond: 15
   Width: 560
   Height: 420
   ImageType: 'truecolor'
   VideoCompression: 'none'
   Quality: 0
   NumColormapEntries: 0

1. Now you should have two animation files ready to be merged into one animation. Open Corel RAVE to complete this final step.
   
   
2. Import both of your animations into RAVE by selecting "File" --> "Import..." from the menu. In the timeline at the bottom of the window the two animations are each indicated by "Group of X Objects", where X is the number of frames in each animation. Make sure these are equal!!
   
   
   
   
3. Change the final animations settings by selecting "Movie" --> "Movie Setup" from the menu.
   
   • Set the movie height and width in pixels. For a PowerPoint presentation, the dimensions should be no larger than 1024 wide x 768 high (which is full screen on our projector). 900 x 700 is a good size that will leave a nice border around the movie in PowerPoint.
   • Set the resolution to 96 dpi.
   • Set the frame rate to your desired speed. If your output movie is too fast, then you can slow it down by reducing the frame rate.
   • Select "Background" in the left frame of the dialog. Set the background color to Black.
   
    
   
   
4. Arrange the animations to fit inside final animation frame. Resize the original animations if needed, BUT, for optimal quality, DO NOT resize the Abaqus animation, and DO resize the Matlab animation. For some reason Corel RAVE does not properly set the size of the Matlab animation when it is imported, so set it to match the height and width values output by Matlab earlier. To do this, click on the Matlab animation and then type in the appropriate numbers.
   
   
   
   
5. Export the animation by selecting "File" --> "Export..." from the menu.  In the dialog box, change the file type to "AVI - Video for Windows". Change "Compression Type:" to "Compression". Without compression your file can be HUGE, maybe more than 100 MB! Name the file and then click "Export". Be patient!
   
   
   
   
6. Next you will be presented with the "Video Compression" dialog box. Select "Microsoft Video 1", set the Compression Quality to "75", and then select OK. Be patient!! Once its done, your final animation should be complete and ready to insert into PowerPoint.
   
   
   
   
7. All of the files used in this step-by-step demo can be found in this folder.