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Taking Snapshots and Making Movies

Owned by Jennifer Hicks
Last updated: Aug 31, 2018 by Chris Dembia
3 min read

The topics covered in this section are:

 

Taking a Snapshot

To save the current view as an image:

  1. Click the camera button  in the current Visualizer Toolbar.

  2. Navigate to the folder where you would like to save the image. Then enter a file name for the image in the dialog box that appears and click Save. The name of the file defaults to opensim_snapshot.png, but you can change this before saving.


Note:

  • The image format is png.
  • You can change the image quality using the View Controls->Snapshot Quality slider. Quality options range from 1-4, where 4 produces highest resolution.

 

 Making a Movie

OpenSim allows you to save the simulation playback in a webm format movie file using the movie camera button. You can change the camera angle or its position with respect to the model during the recording session manually. Posing the model with the coordinate viewer can also be recorded.

Webm is a versatile cross-platform file format for storing media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebM) and it is supported by youtube, vimeo for online viewing. It is also supported by most web browsers (e.g. Chrome, Microsoft/Edge) so you can drag the generated movie into Chrome and it will autoplay. There are also plenty of online tools to convert webm videos to other popular video formats (.mp4, .mpeg, .mov). To view webm videos locally, you can use the cross-platform open-source tool VLC.

The quality of the recorded video depends on the speed of your computer's Graphics Card. Recording using a slow Graphics Card can result in errors that make the movie go very fast or seem 'jerky'.  If you experience these issues, change the Graphics Card settings to favor performance over quality. 

  Recording a Movie

To record a motion as a movie: 

  1. Click the movie camera button shown in the Visualizer Toolbar. The background of the button will highlight and the recording will start immediately.

  2. What is displayed in the Visualizer window will then be recorded. So any changes you make to the camera view or to the model, for example, changing coordinates or playing back a simulation through the play  or reverse play  buttons in the video controls, will be saved as a movie.The movie camera button background will stay highlighted while recording.

  3. The behavior of recording is different in 4.0 than in 3.3: in 4.0, the movie records regardless of whether or not there is motion in the Visualizer Window.

  4. To stop recording and write out the movie file, press the movie camera button again. At this point you'll be prompted to enter a file name for the movie to be saved. Keep track of the folder name for future reference.
     


 

 

Next: Model Editing

Home: Snapshots and Movies

 

 

OpenSim is supported by the Mobilize Center , an NIH Biomedical Technology Resource Center (grant P41 EB027060); the Restore Center , an NIH-funded Medical Rehabilitation Research Resource Network Center (grant P2C HD101913); and the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance through the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation. See the People page for a list of the many people who have contributed to the OpenSim project over the years. ©2010-2024 OpenSim. All rights reserved.