Computer animation with Cinema

A description is given of Cinema, a general-purpose animation system designed to animate models developed using the SIMAN simulation language. The Cinema package consists of two separate modules: CINEMA is used to draw the graphical images used in the animation and CSIMAN executes a SIMAN simulation model and associated animation. Animation typically centers around the presentation of final modeling results. However, the simplicity of developing Cinema animations allows users to exploit animation in more phases of a simulation project. By using Cinema, contributions of animation can be found throughout the entire simulation project from initial model debugging through presentation of the final simulation results. Recent enhancements to Cinema IV include accumulating conveyors, AGV modeling features, dynamic plots and histograms, symbol fetch from backgrounds, and an improved user interface. Cinema is available on a wide variety of platforms and operating systems