Viewing Animations of Results

Simulation results from CarSim, TruckSim, and BikeSim models are viewed with an integrated animator. For over a decade, animation has been handled with a program called SurfAnim, which has been improved to go from simple solid renderings to include translucency, textures, and other capabilities supported by OpenGL. Starting in 2011, a new program called the VS Visualizer (VsV) is also being provided. VsV uses the latest technology to provide much higher performance, with modern features such as smoke, mirrors, lighting, true shadows, variable levels of detail, and many more features supported in modern gaming systems.

VsV is now used in our driving simulators and will eventually replace SurfAnim in all of our products.

Easy to Use

To fit in with the rest of the software, SurfAnim and VsV areso easy to use that training is not required. View an animation with one button click, and interact with simple sweeping mouse movements.

• Use a single button click to view any existing run in the database.
• Change camera position and zoom in and out with the simulated camera using simple mouse sweeping motions.
• View road shapes that are generated automatically from the geometry specified for the vehicle math models.
• Control camera settings with a graphical interface in the database the same as used for all other parts of the simulated vehicle and testing.
• Assemble parts in the animation using the same graphical interface as used to assemble parts of the vehicle and control models.
• Each VS product comes with a catelog of 3D vehicle shapes that are used in the examples. They are automatically resized to match the dimensions of the vehicle model, and can be given new colors to help identify vehicles when runs are overlaid in animations. Here are the catelogs of shapes for CarSim and TruckSim.

Built from Standard High-Performace Technology

SurfAnim was built to make use of technology originally developed for advanced flight simulators and more recently accelerated for movie animations and video games. VsV starts at a much more advanced level, as seen in todays high-level video games.

• All surfaces are shaded and rendered using the OpenGL library that is standard in Windows and other modern operating systems.
• Most video/graphics cards support OpenGL in hardware. VsV automatically checks the capability of the card to give the best performance possible for both high- and low-end graphics hardware.
• Shapes can be translucent or opaque, and can have photographic images and textures "wrapped" around them.
• Shape definitions for SurfAnim are stored in open-standard OBJ or STL surface files that can be created with most 3D graphics and CAD programs. VsV supports many more formats, including the open standard OSG (Open Scene Graph).

Extended Features for Showing Vehicle Dynamics

SurfAnim and VsV have extra features for showing vehicle dynamic behavior.

• Playback speed can be controlled continuously from full-speed (real time), to extremely slow motion, to pause. VsV also supports high-speed playback. This allows the careful study of complicated motions.
• Instant access to any part of the animation is provided with a slide bar, similar to the slide bar in a multimedia player.
• All motion is smoothed by spline interpolation, to avoid jerky display even with extreme slow motion.
• Results from different runs can be overlaid (a single button enables this mode) to visually compare results for different vehicles or conditions.
• Multiple images of the vehicle (called "ghosts") of past vehicle positions help visualize complicated motions. (This feature is not yet supported in VsV.)
• Shapes can be sized based on variables from the vehicle model. This feature is used to show arrows indicating tire forces.
• Shapes can be made visible or invisible based on variables from the vehicle model. For example, this is used to show brake lights.
• Shape transparency can be adjusted based on variables from the vehicle model. This feature is used to show tire skid marks.
• The animator also works in real-time, obtaining motion variables "live" from a running model. This mode is used to show the simulated vehicle when testing hardware in the loop, or when using a driving simulator.
• Multiple animations can run in real-time on different computers to support multiple-screen displays for driving simulators.

Transfer Animations via Email

SurfAnim has the option to save the current animation information in a highly compressed form. The saved file can even include the SurfAnim program. The saved file can be emailed to colleagues, downloaded from a web site, or posted on a company server. It can also be embedded in PowerPoint presentations.

Although you need to be running under a license (CarSim, TruckSim, BikeSim, etc.) to create the file, no license is needed to play it. Go ahead and test this by downloading some animations.

SurfAnim also has the option of saving videos using standard multimedia file formats such as AVI, for use in PowerPoint or uploading to YouTube.

(For now, VsV videos are saved using third-party software such as fraps.)

Animating Data from Tests and External Sources

The animator obtains motion information from ERD files that are generated by the math model solver programs. A Utility program is used to convert files from CSV (generated by spreadsheet programs such as Excel) to files to allow animation of data from outside sources. This capability has been used to animate measurements from physical tests, allowing "virtual races."

General Information