How to generate assembly animations

Preparing for recording the animation

1. Open the files in FreeCAD. The Exploded Assembly module by Javier Martínez (https://github.com/JMG1/ExplodedAssembly) must be installed.
2. The animations are recorded using the following settings:
   • Background color: Simple color, white (under Preferences > Display > Colors)
   • View: Perspective view (under View > Perspective View)
   • Closed Combo View panel
3. Place the camera and field of view on the part of the assembly that is going to be recorded
   • The assembly should be completely disassembled in the beginning (click on the Forward button of the Exploded view module) and the camera centered on the fully exploded components (View > Standard Views > Fit all)
   • Perspective is axonometric (View > Standard Views > Axonometric) by default, but any other view of the part can be used to show assembly details.
   • Hide all the non-relevant or still not assembled components.
   • Hide all trajectories (Toggle trajectory visibility)

Recording the video

We use Mac OS to record this videos, if you use other OS you should come up with your own steps.

• The X, Y, Z axes should be out of the recording area

Trim the video (Edit > Trim). About one second unassembled, three seconds assembled at the beginning and end.

The videos are recorded with the "Screen Recording" Quicktime feature.

Converting to gif

Use screengif (https://github.com/dergachev/screengif).

• Image width: 800px
• Framerate: 5fps (default)

Example:

screengif -w 800 --input 2_sa_z_motor.mov --output 2_sa_z_motor.gif

Storing the video in the repository