Menu Selection 5) Generate an animation from any 3-D microstructure

An alternate method of viewing a microstructure is provided by Menu Selection 5. This selection can be used to create an animated gif ("fly through") file for a user-specified 3-D microstructure. For this selection, the user supplies the following information before submitting the displayed form:

1) the name of the microstructure to be animated,
• 2) a new filename in which to store the animated gif file,
• 3) the number of 2-D slices to include in the animation (0,100), and
• 4) the magnification (1X-10X) to use for the animation images.

The first slice of the microstructure is always used as the starting slice for the 3-D animation generation. Typically, to generate a complete (100 slice) animation of a 3-D microstructure will require 15 min to 20 min of CPU time. Thus, the user should wait for this period of time before trying to view the animation using Menu Selection 6. The VCCTL is set up to create only one animation at any specific time. Therefore, if the system is busy creating one animation when another request is submitted, the user will be notified to resubmit their job at a later time.