Visio Animation Template

[vojo]

So, I got curious about animation with visio.
I put together this template.   The help page should outline how to use it.
Note:
   1. It has VB so if nervous about security or me...then dont use
   2. I freely admit its a bit of hack...all feel free to do whatever you want
   3. I make no claims/guarentees about the correctness/robustness of this template.

All that said....have fun....feedback welcomed, though not sure how much time I can divert to updates

[vojo]

kind of surprised how quiet this post is.   

I would have thought either some good comments or some scorning comments.

BTW, I did play with this using screen video capture...works pretty well.
So you could actual make a wmv file of the animation and include/launch from other apps. 

Anyway....just surprised at the silence...got more comments on the comm pipe efforts (good and bad)
Has somebody done this before or better (I noted the guys from france
that seemed to require the user to click to advance to next step in animation...I also noted some
code Graham's book....so perhaps somebody did something even better?)?

[Paul Herber]

kind of surprised how quiet this post is.   
ham's book....so perhaps somebody did something even better?)?

Sorry, I've only just got around to trying it.
Well, all I can say is wow.

[Michael Dag]

yeah, wow too here, just trying to understand how you do it... 

if I move the lines away, the bulls eye still moves along the original path,
how can you make the bulls eye 'stick' to the line? 
Can it also 'follow' cornered lines like the ones below?

that would really beef up some of the images...

[vojo]

put the bullseye (at the same or new sim cycle...aka 5 cycles in) over the new location and
right click==>update step

Today, everytime you turn a corner...need to burn another step and cycle....current the max is 20 / bullseye
I am thinking of using the path/paths property to build a "follow the line" approach.
(really depends on if viewed as valuable and my time allows).

Note that the arc settings allows the shape/bullseye to take an elliptcial path to next point.
So for examle if you wanted to do a circle....set start....set halfway...set end (same as start)...run
once then go into bullseye shapesheet and everywhere in scratchD = 0.33....change to 1
scratchD defines the "ellipticalness" of the arc

[wapperdude]

Very intriguing!  It took me a while to get up-to-speed, but nice job Vojo.    This looks like a good topic for Visio Guy to develop and present.     Not sure everyone realizes there's a zip to download, which you can only see by logging in.  The animation runs very smoothly.  Still trying to absorb it all.   

Wapperdude

[wapperdude]

Hey Vojo --
I wanted to re-visit the comm piping thing, but can't seem to track it down.   :'(

Thanks.
Wapperdude

[vojo]

here you go

remember not for the faint of heart

[Visio Guy]

Very cool stuff vojo!

I've got two items:

1. It's not 100% clear to me what I am animating. Are only bull's eyes animate-able, or am I supposed to put the bull's eye on top of the shape that I want to animate?

2. The animation controls are groups. It's easy to sub-select the bits within the group. You can make it so the sub-shapes don't get selected like this:

  - Select the shape
  - Format > Behavior > Selection = Group only

[vojo]

1.   Bullseye and whatever is joined to that group (add to group).   
      So for example, you could had a server icon to the
      bullseye group....then during animation, both the bullseye and server icon would move
      (help page has an example where a box added to a bullseye...on help page...click the run bar
      and watch it).

2.   Actually cannot since the subshapes act like buttons.   I suppose could let the guy drop button by
      button but that seems tough way to go to me (keep them flat and spaced on the diagram). 
      I would be more inclined to do a menu bar for this
      (did think about it...but the problem was I could not figure out how do the status stuff...sliding
       bar with x of y text).

      if there is another way to do as shapes (for now at least), I am open to it.

[Visio Guy]

You can do the "don't select subshapes" setting on sub-shapes themselves, since you have three levels of grouping. So the button sub-shapes could be set to not allow sub-selection.

You don't have to set this at the top--that would of course make no sense!

[vojo]

fair enough....will play with that tonight.

So I am trying to figure out if this valuable useful.  Right now, there are 2 suggestions:
   - your subshape stuff
   - follow a path option as well others

Will see what I can do with these....other suggestions to make it (more) useful are appreciated.
I dont want this to be some academic exercise...but, rather, something somebody wants to use to solve
a real need they have.   Few of us have the luxory to pursue academic endeavors

[davidoff]

So, I got curious about animation with visio.
I put together this template.   The help page should outline how to use it.
Note:
   1. It has VB so if nervous about security or me...then dont use
   2. I freely admit its a bit of hack...all feel free to do whatever you want
   3. I make no claims/guarentees about the correctness/robustness of this template.

All that said....have fun....feedback welcomed, though not sure how much time I can divert to updates

vojo it's great,
i would like learn how do you managed it ?
Do you use VBA codes for animation ?

[vojo]

Used VBA to do the heavy lifting

In essence, the template has a stencil that has the dashboard and some specialized shapes.  You drop the animation shape on the static shape.  You trace the animation shape path (move, right click, add step).  When you run the animation from the dashboard, the VBA moves the animation shape along the path you defined.

There are straight/arced paths, show/hide shape, add/delete steps, etc to select from.  If you want to move the static shape with the animation, add it to the group of the animation shape so the whole thing moves.

I have been thinking (have not had much time to try it out) of using the points function in VBA to have
the animation shape follow the static shape path.  Aka the other way around from adding the static
shape to the animation shape (no need to trace path with steps).

The animation uses the timer function in VBA.   Crude but sufficient.

Obviously, if you look at the VBA, you can tell I am not a programmer per se (actually an engineer) so
I am sure there are slicker ways to code this up.  The rest of the VBA is there to make all this come together (each animation shape holds its own path, determine which shapes are animation shapes, etc).

Feel free to play around with it (add to it or pull out what you need).  Be sure that if you add to it, post
it up here for others to use/enhance.   I do think you need this to be a template so the VBA stays with it (take your static diagram and copy / paste into template then add animation....or....create your static diagram in the template to begin with).

good luck.

[fritoburrito]

Looks like this thread is a little dusty, but here goes anyway.   The animation effect will be very helpful, thanks for posting this little gem.   

But (yea, there's a but)....I use Rockwell Arena to do sophisticated flow/animations with mathematical analysis, without resorting to VB/macros or etc.  Or at least it takes an extremely sophisticated model before you even consider macros. 

Don't get me wrong, I can't live without Visio (it's a fact), just saying some tools are better suited for certain things.  I do plan to incorporate this technique into future drawings.

Thanks again!