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- Tutorial Example of How to Use the Program
-
-
-
- Many combinations of interaction with the program are possible.
- The following sequence is just one possibility.
-
-
- 1. Start up the program.
-
- 2. A wire frame view of the arm will appear.
-
- 3. Turn the reference axes on with the "ref axes" item in the View
- menu.
-
- 4. Note the direction of positive angle rotations and click on the
- "ok" box of the message requester to get rid of it.
-
- 5. Go to the Rotate menu and select "elbow". Rotate it about the X
- axis by the full -145 degrees. Since the arm is always scaled to fit
- into the screen a "cramped up" arm displays bigger. Hidden surface
- elimination is also more apparent.
-
- 6. Go to the Rotate menu and rotate the wrist by +45 degrees on the
- Z axis..
-
- 7. Click off the reference axes and go to the "color" item in the
- project menu and try out the various color settings. Pick one you
- like and stay there for awhile. The red one grows on you.
-
- 8. Go to the View menu and try out some different viewpoints. Click
- on the reference axes for orientation. Try the wire frame view if
- the orientation is still unclear.
-
- 9. Go to the Rotate menu and click on the shoulder menu and return
- the joint settings to the zero position (already there I guess).
- Return the elbow and wrist to the zero settings. The arm should have
- straightened out. Check what the viewpoint setting is if does'nt
- look like what it did when the program started.
-
- 10. Now try some animation. Click on the "set all joints" item in
- the Goal menu. Change a few of the angles of the joints by a
- sizeable amount. Once again a large elbow movement makes for more
- interesting displays and animation.
-
- 11. After the last requester (wrist) has disappeared, click on the
- Rotate menu and note the warning. Don't destroy the old settings,
- but go to the "arm" item in the Animate menu and click on it.
-
- 12. The number of frames generated is a function of the maximum
- angle change you specified, divided by 5 degrees. 30 or so frames
- are possible.
-
- 13. Go to 10. and make some more joint changes then select the wire
- frame view. Set the colors to "set2" (good contrast for wire frame)
- and try animation again. Note the slight improvement is speed.
-
- 14. Try a perspective view. Not always terribly interesting or
- predicatable. I think there are some bugs here somewhere.
-