I am attempting to render the animation of a flexible component in Creo parametric. Specifically I am trying to show a timing belt in motion but I think this would be useful for springs and other components where the material deforms.
I have tried several different approaches and read several discussions on the topic without success. I am able to make the geometry of the part change with the assembly by referencing the assembly in the components feature definition or making the component flexible however the assembly must be regenerated for the geometry to update. My understanding is that Mechanism and Animate applications in Creo can not regenerate after each step in the motion.
To make the model animate and regenerate I have added a line to the relations that will increment the motion of my model. Basically I added something like "dimension = dimension + step" so that each time the model is regenerated it will move the position of the component one step.
This works well but I need a way to capture a picture of the model after each step and automatically generate the next step. I was thinking I could use a mapkey, something like "regenerate the model --> render --> save as a picture (with incremental name)" and then repeat a given number of times. Searching the forums the only solution I have found to making incremental names and repeating the command is to make one giant mapkey that includes all of the steps repeated with different file names in each step. A bit of a workaround but if I write a small program to generate this mapkey it wouldn't be much work to repeat this process in the future.
If you don't want to read this whole post start reading here.
The challenge I am having is that I can not get a mapkey to perform all the functions I need together (regenerate the model --> render --> save as a picture).
I can create a mapkey that "regenerates and then renders the model" and I can create one that "saves the model as a picture". However when I try to create a single mapkey to perform the whole function it fails to save. I have tried recording this as a single mapkey as well as combining the two components manually but neither solution worked. My only thought is that when I try to do this in a single mapkey Creo is not waiting for the render to complete before attempting to save. Any ideas on how to solve this problem?
This is the mapkey I recorded to perform the "regenerate the model --> render --> save as a picture" sequence, but it is not saving a picture when I run it.
*ignore the smiles
mapkey $F12 ~ Command `ProCmdRegenAuto` ;~ Command `ProCmdViewRenderWindow`
mapkey(continued) ~ Close `main_dlg_cur` `appl_casc`;~ Command `ProCmdModelSaveAs`
mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `file_saveas``pb_favorites__FAV_8_`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Select `file_saveas` `ph_list.Filelist` 1 `My_Project`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `file_saveas` `ph_list.Filelist` 1 `My_Project`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Select `file_saveas` `ph_list.Filelist` 1 `rendered frames`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `file_saveas` `ph_list.Filelist` 1 `rendered frames`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Update `file_saveas``Inputname` `frame0001`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Open `file_saveas` `type_option`;~ Close `file_saveas` `type_option`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Select `file_saveas` `type_option` 1 `db_583`;\
mapkey(continued) ~ Activate `file_saveas` `OK`;
