Take a tour around your 3D model by using ANIPATH command
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Author | Burak Özdemir |
| Profession | Mechanical Construction | |
| Designer | ||
| Location | Istanbul, TURKEY | |
By using this command, we can simply prepare a path around a 3D model and move the camera around this path and create an animation. By this way, we can also see the models inside which we have to see also. If we define the path along which the camera will move by using _spline “not _polyline”, then there will be smooth turnings, not sudden, in our animation (video). Or animation will also have a better and nice looking view.

After entering _anipath command from keyboard, we select the ‘select path‘ option in ‘Link camera to:’ from ‘Camera’ part and then select the path that we defined previously.
Camera path will start moving from the first point that we entered.

Fig.1
When select the Reverse option, camera will start moving from the end point, not the starting point, (in a way that it shows our model) in reverse direction to our starting point.

Fig.2
In ‘Animation Settings‘ part, we can set the animation speed. You can also change the view of our solid model while we watch the preview our movie by clicking on the ‘Preview‘ button.
• 3D Hidden
• 3D Wireframe
• Conceptual
• Realistic
Now, let’s repeat our animation by using a different view angle. First thing that we have to do is to select a separate plane from where we will direct the camera to. Select the path that we created by using ‘select path‘ from ‘Link camera to:‘ option without touching the ‘Camera‘ and ’Target‘ parts from the dialog box that appears after we enter _anipath command. Window will appear again right after that.

Fig.3
by selecting ‘Point‘ in target part and pressing ‘select path‘ just beside it, we can select the point to which our camera will look to.

Fig.4

Fig.5

Fig.6
After checking the preview of animation by pressing ‘Preview‘ button, we press OK and save the animation. For those who are wondering how the video look likes, I uploaded a sample video to Youtube . You can watch video from here.
Have a nice day.
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August 18th, 2007 14:38
You have done praise worthy work. Appreciate you efforts and work that you have done.
I have keen interest learning AutoCAD. I have learn so many commands by using Help Utility but I still feel difficultly to work in more depth so you are requested to send some good books to follow thems
September 12th, 2007 14:34
Thanks for this great command. For my personal usage I’ve always wanted to learn hot to make animated show of my drawing and this saved me a whole lot of searching and figuring how a command works. Keep up the great job!
January 23rd, 2008 19:29
I would like to know how keep the camera angle stable when I go around my 3D model with anipath.
It should have some tools to set up… or so?
thanks for helping me.
when I turn around my model the camera twists and shows my model in reverse .
Let s imagine a 3Dmodel… I d like to create a spiral path all through(transversally) the 3D model and keep fixed the camera right to the point I target without letting it twisting…. I find some difficulties to do it….
Many thanks
3D friend
March 15th, 2008 10:59
Thanks for Burak ÖZDEMİR you taught us very good command for animation and video i used it and love it.
May 27th, 2008 16:01
Would you happen to know if it’s possible to use anipath on a rendered drawing with materials? I haven’t been able to animate anything with materials and it is extremely frustrating. Would I have to use a seperate program like Architectural Desktop or Inventor?
Thanks