Module: Animate Ports ()

Description:

The Animate Ports module can be connected to any other object to animate its visibility or to animate the value of one of the following ports: PortFloatSlider, PortIntSlider, PortFloatTextN, or PortIntTextN. The Animate Ports module provides a time port that can be used to set the value of one of these ports of the other object. The time value is not used directly to set the other port's value but is modified by a user-defined expression. For example, if the time is running from 0 to 100 and you want to animate a slice slider from 0 to 50, you have to use the expression t/2. More complicated expressions involving functions such as sin or cos can be used as well. For a description of supported functions please refer to the Arithmetic module.

Connections:

Object [required]
Connection to the object containing the port to be animated.

Time [optional]
Optional connection to a time object. If the port is connected to a time object, the time of that object is used. In this way multiple modules with a time port can be synchronized.

Ports:

Time

This slider allows you to set or animate the current time value. The time range and the increment used for animation can be adjusted in the configure dialog which can be popped up using the right mouse button.

Port

Option menu listing all ports of the connected object that can be animated. The selected port actually will be animated. The special entry visible corresponds to the viewer mask rather than an actual port.

Value

Use this text field to specify the expression used to compute the actual value of the port to be animated. The expression can include two different variables, namely t denoting the current time value, and u denoting the previous value of the port.

For the visible entry, the expression is interpreted as a Boolean expression, where 0 means invisible, while a number different from 0 means visible. You can use expressions like t>20 or ( (t>5) && (t<15)) || (t>100).

Value2

If the port to be animated has multiple text fields, one expression port will be shown for each text field. If you don't want to change the value of a particular text field, use the expression u, which is the previous value of the port.

Commands:

setMinMaxPortRange
Sets the minimum and maximum value of the time port to the minimum and maximum value of the chosen port.