Animator® is an Autodesk® AutoCAD® & Autodesk® Civil 3D® plugin that simulates a vehicle’s movement along an axis.
It helps detect clashes and interfaces of a moving vehicle with other objects around the travel path.
Its predominant scope is to cover Railway Projects but can also support other vehicle movements along a pre-defined path.
The Animator can be used to check/measure multiple parameters, necessary for many railway studies
such as Gauge Control, Conductor Rail Gap Studies, Vehicle interface with other elements, etc.
With the tools provided, users can easily define their own vehicles which can then be used as a personal library of vehicles.

A. DEFINE A VEHICLE
1. Click the [Add] Button in the [Vehicles] Section.
2. Give a name to your vehicle as prompted at the command line.
3. Select each element of the vehicle from the current drawing as prompted at the command line
Note: The vehicle's elements are wagons, rotation points, axles, and pen points.
4. Your vehicle will be inserted into the vehicle list.

B. DEFINE A PATH
1. Click the [Add] Button in the [Paths] Section.
2. Give a name to your path as prompted at the command line.
3. Select a polyline from your current drawing.
4. Your path will be inserted into the path list.
5. If your path is related to a chainage, add the Kilometer Point start value at the relevant field.
6. In case you do not know the starting point’s KP use another point of the path with a known KP value as a reference.
by pressing the [Give KP label at a point] button.

C. CREATE A ROUTE
In order to see the traveling animation of a vehicle, a route must be created.
1. Select the vehicle and the path from your lists.
2. Click the [Add] Button in the [Routes] Section.
3. Select a point on your prototype vehicle as the base point.
4. Select the final point on the path.
6. An appropriate name gets created automatically.
7. The route gets inserted into the route list.
8. The selected vehicle gets drawn at the calculated position on the path.

D. ROUTE ANIMATION
Depending on the kind of the problem, Animator provides 3 alternatives for performing an animation:
  1. ANIMATION
      At the [Animation] tab, define the movement area adding a starting Kilometer Position (KP) and an ending KP at the respective fields.
      Specify the route speed by giving the speed value or the route duration at the respective fields.
      Press the [Play] button to begin the animation.
      Press the [Pause] button to end the animation.
      Press the [Backwards] button to place the vehicle at the starting KP.
      Press the [Forward] button to place the vehicle at the ending KP.
  2. DRAG
      At the [Drag] tab, press the [Move] button and the selected vehicle will follow your cursor position until you click on a target point.
      This feature helps stop the animation at certain locations and realize measurements depending on the problem or the analysis
      that is being performed.
  3. DISPLACEMENT
      At the [Displacement] tab, add a value at the [Distance] field, press the [Move] button and the selected vehicle will be moved
      along the selected path at the given distance.

MORE FEATURES
Press the [Reverse] button to reverse the vehicle's direction.
Tick the [Leave Trace at pen points] checkbox and trace polylines that pass through the pen points will be drawn during the movement.
Animator® provides you with the option to add more pen points than the initially defined at the vehicle-definition phase.
Click the [Add Pen Points] button on the TSS ribbon and select the points as prompted at the command line.
Animator® provides you with the option to import vehicles and paths from another drawing into your active drawing.
  1. Click the [Import data] button on the TSS ribbon.
  2. At the dialog box, select the drawing that includes the required data 
  3. Press the [Open] button.
  4. All vehicles and paths will be drawn at the current drawing and your lists will be populated.

Note: This app uses a custom installer (and not the standard App Store installer).