Animation in simulation models helps the user quickly understand what the simulation model does. A common saying says that a picture is worth a hundred words. Another says that “seeing is believing”. Animation simply helps to build confidence in a decision maker to the simulation model.
Animation has become one of the differentiating factors between various simulation packages. Software vendors see it as an enabling feature for many users, which potentially could make simulation very popular. The challenge is how to create a nice 2D or 3D animation that is intuitive and fast to build?
Is animation always necessary?
A simulation model can do without simulation. The first simulation software in the 60’s and 70’s didn’t offer graphical animation at all. They were focused on providing meaningful results which were given as numbers! The results are still the core benefit of a simulation project.
Animation plays a negative role in a simulation model when it comes to CPU (computer processor) utilization. It simply consumes its power that could be used for more and faster simulation model runs. Thus, it is a common practice that animation is simply switched off to enable multiple and fast simulation runs.
Animation challenges
Some challenges in animation refer to:
Building animation takes time, usually it is a mundane task
Animation scales badly, what is possible for 1 or 2 objects may not work for 1000.
Animation reacts to simulation events, so it has to be well linked to them
Animation is limited more than the simulation logic to the features provided by actual simulation software. For example, if software doesn’t allow for free positioning (with coordinates) of an object in the animation area then there is almost no way of going round it.
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