SurfAnim Hints

If you download a self-contained animation file (EXE) you can play it on a Windows PC using the full resolution of your monitor. All controls in the downloaded EXE file work the same as when running the SurfAnim program from within CarSim, TruckSim, or BikeSim. The main controls are described on this page.

 

Play, Pause, and Reverse

Notice the slider at the bottom of the screen (4). As the animation runs, the slider moves from left to right. The current time is shown in the black field at the left (2) (e.g., 3.01 sec). The animator has controls for starting, stopping, and jumping to any point in the simulated run. Make sure the Loop box (3) is checked, to cause the animation to repeat.

  • Pause the animation by clicking the stop button (5) or pressing the space key on your keyboard.
  • Play the animation forward by clicking the arrow button (5) or type Ctrl + the right arrow key.
  • Play backward by clicking the back arrow button or typing Ctrl + the left arrow key.
  • Or, put the cursor over the slider (4) (when stopped), and move it with the mouse left or right to a point in time.
  • Press the Left or Right arrow keys (when stopped) to jump the slider forward or backward in the animation. Type Ctrl+S to play the animation from the start.

Camera Control by Mouse

Clicking (and holding the button down) in the animation display region and using simple sweeping motions can move the simulated camcorder.

  • Click and hold anywhere in the viewing area with the left mouse button, then sweep left and right to circle around the vehicle.
  • Click and hold anywhere in the viewing area with the left mouse button, then sweep up and down to move the camera up and down.
  • Click and hold in the viewing area with the right mouse button, then sweep up and down to move towards the vehicle or away from it.
  • If you have a three-button mouse or scroll wheel, press the middle button and sweep up and down to zoom in and out. (This does not move the camera, but changes the simulated zoom lens.)
  • Hold the shift key and click and hold in the viewing area with the left mouse button. Sweep in any direction to “drag” the viewing area. This changes the aim of the camera, while leaving its position unaffected.

Playback Speed and Slow Motion

While the animation is playing, look at the green bar to the right of the specified frame rate (6). If it bar is not completely green, your computer is not capable of playing this particular animation at full speed using the frame rate shown. Click and hold on the frame rate button (6) to pull down a menu of frame rates and select a lower one.

If the green bar fills the enclosing rectangle, you might be able to run with a higher frame rate.

The playback speed is normally real-time. However, you can slow it down using the vertical slider bar (1) on the left side of the window While the animation is playing, move the slider bar down to see the effect of slow motion. You can also move the bar with the the up and down arrow keys. If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can also use it.

Multiple Images (Ghosts)

SurfAnim has the option to display multiple images for the moving objects, with a time delay between images. This is useful for visualizing complex motions dynamically, and also for preparing static images that indicate the motion.

Display multiple images (ghosts) by using control (7) to choose the number of ghosts, and the adjacent slider bar to set the time delay.

Related Pages

Download animations
Download Motor Trend animations
Animator features
Download the CarSim show

Computer Requirements

Graphics Card

SurfAnim uses the OpenGL library in Windows. Most video/graphics cards support portions of OpenGL in hardware, speeding up SurfAnim by a factor of 50 or more. Cards that work well include:

  • ATI cards that use the Radeon chipset.
  • Cards that use the nVIDIA GeForce chipset.

Windows Settings

Depending on your system, you might have to change settings to enable the full performance of the graphics hardware. On the other hand, you might need to adjust settings to compensate for limits in the hardware.

  1. Number of colors. OpenGL does not work well with 256 colors or less. The valid settings are 16-bit (64 thousand colors), 24-bit (16 million colors), and 32-bit (also called true color). Most graphics cards give maximum performance with only one of these settings. Experiment to find which works best for your machine.
  2. Screen size. On some laptops, the native size (e.g., 1024 x 768) updates faster than other sizes. Experiment on your machine to find out if there are differences in SurfAnim speed with the different settings.
  3. Graphics accelerator. In some implementations (details depend on your version of Windows and on the installed hardware), various levels of graphic acceleration can be set. In some cases, the fully accelerated mode will cause display problems and system crashes. If this happens, try different acceleration settings.
  4. OpenGL Settings. In some implementations (details depend on your hardware), You might have access to graphic settings specific to OpenGL. If you do, try to set the texture support to 32-bit if this option is available. This provides the best picture quality with no loss in speed. Also, if there is an option to control vertical synchronization, then disable it. Disabling the vertical synchronization speeds up the animator significantly.
Display multiple images (ghosts) to visualize complex motion or prepare static images for presentations. Click image for full size.