Animating the cage's expansion

Started by spine407, September 19, 2016, 08:05:03 AM

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spine407

Hello everyone,

I am looking for some instructions or pointers for some animating a part for some clients. I need to show that the plastic cage expands when the titanium shim is inserted. The clients have sent me the parts in .STEP format.

Thank you

guest84672

Because of the deformable mesh you will need to animate this in another application, and then write out an obj sequence which can then be read into KeyShot and rendered out.

Livingstone

Hi Spine,
You need to use another software to animate it and then export animation to Keyshot. From the PNG you posted I can see you animated it already or do you have the 2 positions only?
Which software do you use?
From my experience on STEP files you will not work well deforming meshes from step file.  Step files comes from nurbs modeling software for Industrial production as Solidworks , ProE or if you are lucky Rhino.
99% the conversion from step to a polygonal mesh give a topological mess of triangles and some edge will be not closed so when you bend or deform you will see the mesh open.
Giving a look to the images you posted the only part you need to animate are the connection elements ( omega shape ) between the top and the bottom shell.
I see they are all the same  so I suggest to :
-convert the step file in a polygonal mesh.
- create 1 single connection element with your modelling software  so the topology will be good.
- Delete the old connection elements from the original step file .
-Cap the holes you obtained deleting those elements
-Animate the deformation on the single connection element  and then duplicate it in the position of the other old connection elements.
-Animate top, bottom shell and metal parts with a simple translation .
-Export animation sequence to Keyshot using the plugin and the script.
I hope it can help you.