Modeling with advanced techniques > Sheet parts > Animate a bend
  
Animate a bend
When you have finished designing bends, you can animate the results to simulate visually the folding and unfolding of the bends. With Bend Animation, you specify a sheet part face to remain static, the number of animation cycles to run through, and the angle between each successive step of the animation. You can also specify a K factor for the bends.
To animate a bend,
1. Activate the Basic Sheets module:
a. Click File > Modules. The Modules dialog box opens.
b. Click Modules.
c. Click Basic Sheets under Free.
2. Click Sheets and then, in the Post Process group, click Bend Anim. The Bend Animation dialog box opens.
3. Click a bend of your sheet metal part, or use the Select tool to select multiple bends. Creo Elements/Direct Modeling highlights the bends you have clicked. Creo Elements/Direct Modeling automatically detects the static face of the sheet (the Base Face which is to be held while the other parts of the sheet are folded and unfolded during the animation).
4. Optionally, specify an alternative Base Face.
5. Creo Elements/Direct Modeling selects defaults for the animation settings, but you can change these if desired:
Delta Angle: This is the difference in fold/unfold angle between each successive step of the animation. The total number of steps, therefore, will be the bend angle divided by the delta angle.
Cycles: This is the number of times you want to repeat the complete animation cycle. If you do not specify the cycles, the animation continues till you click Stop.
Rot Angle: The angle of rotation of the sheet during the specified cycles. If no cycles are specified, this is the angle by which the sheet rotates during each cycle.
6. If necessary, enter a different K factor for the bends.
7. Select whether the animation should go forward and reverse (Fwd + Rev) or just Reverse (with a jump back to the start) by clicking the relevant switch on.
A Fwd + Rev cycle is folded to unfolded to folded again, whereas a Reverse cycle is unfolded to folded with a jump back to unfolded.
8. To start the animation, click Start.
If you want to study the bend unfolding more carefully (or take screen shots, for example), you can step through it one frame at a time in either direction. (You must have clicked Start at least once to define the animation before you can go through it stepwise) Control the stepping tools as follows:
To step through the animation in the unfolding direction, click Step Fwd.
To step through the animation in the folding direction, click Step Bwd.
You can return to the first frame of the animation at any time by clicking Reset.
When you have finished animating your bend, click .
To save the animation as an AVI file,
1. Open the Save AVI section of the dialog.
2. Click the Filename checkbox and type a path and filename.
3. If required, select values for Screen Size; Frames/Sec, or Codec, using the drop-down menus. Adjust the compression percentage using the drag bar.
4. Click Start to display the animation and save the AVI file.