Animating object properties

Animation Dialog Boxes

When you right-click an object in a picture and select Animations from the context menu, an animations dialog box opens. The default version is the Animations dialog, shown below. 

If you prefer the default dialog to be the Basic Animations Dialog , check the box Always Show Basic Animation Dialog on the Picture Preferences page of the User Preferences dialog (available under the Workspace menu). Then, when you right-click an object and select Animations, you will get the Basic Animation Dialog rather than the advanced dialog. 

Using Experts to Animate Objects

An easy way to animate objects is to use experts. To access an expert, click the button on the Experts toolbar that corresponds to the task you want to perform. Some experts are only available using the Task Wizard. For example, if you want to animate the fill color of an oval, select the Fill Color Expert from the Animation category of the Task Wizard.

To learn more about the fields on the expert, click the Help button on the expert. For more information on DeltaV Operate Experts and the Task Wizard, refer to Using Animation, Command, and Picture Experts.

Understanding Data Sources

When you animate an object, the values of one or more of its properties change. Inherent to each property is the location where it received data. This location is called a data source. Typically, a data source identifies a process value or another object's property. However, a data source can be any of the following:

• A DeltaV Operate tag.

• The value of a picture or object property.

• A global variable.

• A predefined expression.

• OPC servers.

In order to animate an object, you must connect to one of these data sources. In some cases, you can make a direct connection to a data source. In other instances, such as with Animation Experts, you connect an object to an animation object, and then connect the animation object to the data source.

To specify a data source, you enter the appropriate syntax in the Data Source field of the Animations dialog box. Then, by specifying a conversion method for the data, you tell DeltaV Operate how you want to process the data so that you can achieve the desired effect. For more information on selecting data sources, and specifying syntax and conversion types, refer to Defining Data Sources.

When you are ready to animate an object, select the object and then select the appropriate expert from the Experts toolbar or the Task Wizard.

Alternately, you can open the Animations dialog box by double-clicking the object. (For some objects, such as OCXs, Alarm Summaries, Data links, and charts, you must right-click the object and select Animations from the pop-up menu.) Click the tab that contains the property you want to use. You can find a description of the dialog box tabs in Entering Property Values Manually in the topic Controlling Object Properties. The Animations dialog box is available for every object (and every property of that object) in DeltaV Operate. For a description of what each property does, refer to the Property Description in the Properties area.

The following table summarizes some of the more commonly-used animations.

Animating a Size Property

Using the properties in the previous table, you can fill or rotate an object based on an analog input. You can also dynamically scale objects by animating the height and/or width of an object. When scaling objects in this manner, be careful of the data source you select. For example, if you animate a rectangle's height based on a variable's current value (data source is User.Variable1.CurrentValue), the object is resized in the configuration environment to match the variable's value. Since the WorkSpace is in the configuration environment, the value is set to zero and the rectangle is resized to look like a horizontal line. When you switch to the run-time environment, the variable receives new values based on the variable's configuration and the size of the rectangle changes. When you switch back to the configuration environment, the rectangle appears as a line again because the variable's value is reset to zero.

The same effect results using the Scale Expert and you select the current value of a variable as the data source.

Understanding Animation Objects

Animation objects come in three forms:

• Linear (Range) - Accepts any input data from a process database, and returns a corresponding output value (Example: Animating the horizontal position of an oval).

• Lookup (Table) - Accepts any input data from a process database and presents that value to each entry in a lookup table to determine whether that value is in a range. If that value matches the range, the Lookup object then returns the corresponding output value. If the value does not match the range, it moves to the next row in the table and returns that output value (Example: Blinking the color of a rectangle based on a toggle rate).

• Format - Accepts any input data from a database and returns a string as an output value (Example: Creating a caption for a text object).

• Object - If an object contains a property that provides the desired animation, you can connect to that property. This is because every object has the ability to perform permanent connections from one of its properties to another. Essentially, the animation object only transforms data from the property of one object to the property of another object.

The most common animation object is the Lookup object, which is used primarily to apply color. This application is further described in Animating Properties Using Color section. For more information on animation object properties, refer to the Automation Interfaces online help.

Most of your connections to data sources are through animation objects. However, you do not need an animation object to animate an object. 

Animating a Grouped Object

In addition to animating individual objects, you can also animate grouped objects. Animating a grouped object is similar to animating any other object, except that the objects inside the group can have independent animations. To animate a grouped object, select the group and animate the properties you wish using the appropriate expert. The properties of the group are changed to reflect your entries.

To animate the member objects of a group, drill down to the object in the group that you want to animate and complete the necessary entries in the appropriate expert. If the group has an animated property, and one of its member objects has the same property animated in a different way, the most recent animation takes precedence. For example, if you animate the group's ForegroundColor property, and then in turn animate a nested object's ForegroundColor property, you will see the nested object's animation when you run the picture.

Modifying Animations

There may be times when you must change the animations you create. Modifying animated objects is similar to creating them. The main difference is that when you open the Animations dialog box, any properties that have been dynamically changed are indicated by an arrow on its corresponding tab, as the following figure shows.

Figure: Modifying a Fill Animation in the Animations Dialog Box

Modifying a Fill Animation in the Animations Dialog Box

Deleting Animations

When you no longer need an animation, you can delete the animation or the object that contains the animation. Deleting animations removes the animation from the property to which it was assigned.

CAUTION!

Deleting an animation permanently destroys your selections. Do not delete an animation unless you understand the effect it will have on your objects and pictures.