Object-based animation is the display of a sequence of deformed shape plots, contour plots, symbol plots, or material orientation plots. ABAQUS/CAE can produce three different types of sequences of these plots. These three sequence types are called “time history animation,” “scale factor animation,” and “harmonic animation.”

Time history animation produces a sequence of deformed shape, contour, symbol, or material orientation plots that vary over time according to actual analysis results. Scale factor animation produces a sequence of images that vary only in the scaling of a single deformed shape, contour, or symbol plot. Harmonic animation produces a sequence of images that represents complex result values varying according to applied angles. To better understand these three types of animation, see “Time history animation,” Section 34.1.1, “Scale factor animation,” Section 34.1.2, and “Harmonic animation,” Section 34.1.3, respectively.

While an object-based animation is playing, you can dynamically change display characteristics such as the view, any viewport annotations, and plot mode-dependent customization options.

Image-based animation is the playback of an animation file. You create an animation file in ABAQUS/CAE by first playing object-based animations in one or more viewports and then selecting AnimateSave As from the main menu bar. Once saved, your animation can be played external to ABAQUS/CAE using industry-standard animation software. You can choose to save your image-based animation file in either QuickTime or Audio Video Interleave (AVI) format.

In general, animation playback from a file provides better performance than object-based animation, particularly for large models. While an image-based animation is playing, you cannot change display characteristics.