[Paraview] Animating All Data Time Steps

[Utkarsh Ayachit]

Hi Kent,

I believe the "Duration" label can be a bit confusing when running in 
Sequence mode. In Sequence mode, Duration is not seconds, but number of 
frames. In Sequence mode, ParaView does not have the "secondary goal" of 
completing the animation within the "Duration", since duration is not a 
measure of time. There is no "hidden FPS" and when the duration is set 
to 10, exactly 10+1 (since the animation begins with 0 and ends on 10) 
animation steps will be generated.

Having said that, the "second way" you explain sounds very similar to 
what the Sequence mode already represents, except that the duration is 
not automatically set to the range of a value, but the user will have to 
set that explicitly.

Utkarsh

Kent Eschenberg wrote:

> Hi Utkarsh,
>
> Thanks for taking the time to write. For now, I am only interested in 
> live displays (i.e., not written to a file) where one or more of the 
> animated parameters is an integer. This case includes that where there 
> is a data file reader that provides multiple time steps. I will try to 
> make the point that we need a second way to select the animation steps 
> in Sequence mode.
>
> When Sequence mode is selected the most important goal is to play all 
> the animation steps. Completing this within the Duration is a 
> secondary goal that will be met if possible.
>
> The key question for me is just how the animation steps are selected 
> in Sequence mode. Its my guess (which you can confirm) that some 
> hidden value of FPS (frames per second) is used to calculate the 
> animation steps. For example, if the hidden FTS is 15 and the Duration 
> is 10 there will be 150 animation steps. I'll call this the "hidden 
> FPS method". At each step, the relative time is used to calculate the 
> animatable parameters and then the display is updated.
>
> Finally, we get to my concern. I propose that, in Sequence mode, there 
> be a 2nd way to select animation steps that I'll call the "special 
> integer method". To use this method the user must select a track for 
> an animatable integer that has 2 or more keyframes. If the selected 
> integer has, for example, 1000 values along its track then 1000 
> animation steps will be generated.
>
> Lets look at the case where the special integer is the time step index 
> for a data reader. If the track for this has 2 keyframes, at the min 
> and max, then the user can be confident that all time frames will be 
> played as fast as possible. I see no other way to accomplish this.
>
> When Real Time mode is selected, the special integer, if selected, 
> would be ignored.
>
> When writing frames to files, the special integer, if selected, could 
> be used to warn the user if some values will be skipped. I imagine 
> that some, given this warning, would want to abort the recording and 
> change something (Duration or FPS) to make sure all the data is used.
>
> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
> Kent
> - - -
> Kent Eschenberg   eschenbe at psc.edu   (412)268-6829
> Scientific Visualization Specialist
> Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
>
>
>
> --On Thursday, August 04, 2005 03:48:22 PM -0400 Utkarsh Ayachit 
> <utkarsh.ayachit at kitware.com> wrote:
>
>> The Sequence mode runs the animation the fatest way possible with the
>> assurance that every frame will be rendered.
>>
>> ParaView doesn't have a means to specify the frame rate because in that
>> case the guarantee about each frame being rendered cannot be given eg.
>> the user specifes a frame rate of  1fps, however each frame takes 3
>> seconds to render, then what to do? Either ParaView will have to renege
>> on its each frame rendering gurantee and skip frames to mimick a frame
>> rate of 1 fps or dump the frame rate all together.
>>
>> However, ParaView asks for frame rate when saving a movie out. PV run 
>> the
>> animation in sequence mode and saves out each frame in the movie file 
>> and
>> sets the frame rate in the movie file to the requested one. The movie
>> player can now play the movie at that frame rate.
>>
>> Utkarsh
>>
>> Kent Eschenberg wrote:
>>
>>>> Have you tried setting the duration to 1000?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> No, and I'm sure that would work, but what I am looking for is a way
>>> to see all the data steps as quickly as possible. For example, if
>>> updates can run on my workstation at 10 FPS, I am happy to have a
>>> duration of 100. But there seems to be no way to tell ParaView to do
>>> this.
>>>
>>> Kent
>>>
>>>> Kent Eschenberg wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Let's say I have 1000 time steps in my data. How would I go about
>>>>> ensuring that the animator shows them all?
>>>>>
>>>>> "Play Mode" = "Sequence" ensures that no animation steps are skipped.
>>>>> But the number of animation time steps, it seems, is probably well
>>>>> under 1000 (given the default value of 15 for "Duration"). Thus, some
>>>>> of my data is still skipped.
>>>>>
>>>>> It would also help to know the FPS used in "Sequence" mode.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kent
>>>>
>
>