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Appending Data to a Motion

Owned by Jennifer Hicks
Last updated: Feb 17, 2012 by Katherine LundVersion comment
2 min read

To append data from a motion file to a motion that is already loaded into OpenSim:

  1. Expand the Motions branch in the Navigator. 

  2. Right mouse click on the desired motion and select Append Data. 

  3. OpenSim will open a file browser, which you can use to select the desired motion file.

To append data from this file to an existing motion, the data must satisfy two criteria:

  1. The data must contain all of the time frames in the existing motion, and the time of each frame must match exactly (to within the precision used in the two motion files). If there are one or more time frames in the existing motion that are not in the file, OpenSim will print an error message and cancel the append command. If the file contains time frames not in the existing motion, they will be ignored.

  2. The data cannot contain values for coordinates or markers that are in the existing motion. If it does, OpenSim will print an error message and cancel the append command. If the file contains other data columns (e.g., ground-reaction forces) with names that are used in the existing motion, they will be appended, resulting in duplicate column names in the existing motion.


Once the data has been appended to the existing motion, it can be animated and plotted just like the original data. If you save the motion to a file, the original data and the appended data will both be written to the file.

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