Tips

June 2003 - Issue 18
E-Newsletter for Tecplot Users

03.  TECPLOT TIPS - USING ANIMATIONS WITH POWERPOINT
Displaying Quality Animations in Your PowerPoint® Presentations



AVI and RM

Tecplot offers two animation output options — AVI and Raster Metafile (RM). Both work well in PowerPoint presentations. Choosing which one to use depends on your preferences.

There is no difference in quality between AVI and RM. Both use a lossless 256-color bitmap format. (Tecplot uses a mathematical algorithm to produce the optimal subset of 256 colors for images that need to be color reduced.)

You can instruct Tecplot to use one 256 color map for each frame of your animation by selecting multiple color tables in the AVI and Raster Metafile export dialogs. If your plot has translucency and lighting effects, using multiple color tables looks better than exporting with the default of just one color map. Note, however, that PowerPoint does not support AVIs with multiple color tables.

AVIs can be imbedded into your PowerPoint presentation and played automatically. Raster Metafiles are viewed with Framer, which may be launched from PowerPoint.

The AVI and Raster Metafile export dialogs include an option to use multiple color tables. Use it for displaying your animation with a video player. Do not use this option for AVI output intended for PowerPoint presentations.

AVI Output

Resolution Discussion
Best Practices

To make the best possible Tecplot AVI animation for your PowerPoint presentations follow the guidelines below.

This method works best with flat screen and laptop LCDs. It is also helpful to know the resolution of your target display. For some slide shows that do not play in full-screen mode, you may have to resize your movies differently for best quality. This is because these slides are scaled differently when shown.

This example is a 2-D unsteady flow around a cylinder illustrating vortex shedding. There are 26 time steps in the solution. Each time step is a separate zone.

1. For this type of data we select Animate Zones from the Tools menu.

2. Export an AVI file using the Animate Zones dialog.

3. Export an animation the exact size you want for your presentation.

Do not resize the animation in PowerPoint or any viewer. All raster images degrade substantially if you compact or stretch the pixels.

4. Insert the animation into PowerPoint.

5. Typically, the animation will be inserted 100 percent size in Slide view.

6. Framer's default location is in the Bin folder of the TEC90 directory.
    

7. The Format Picture dialog's Size tab displays the animation's current scale.

Discussion

For movies to play without distortion, they need to be scaled so each pixel in the movie corresponds to one pixel on screen. In PowerPoint, the slide contents are scaled either for editing in Slide view or for the Slide show. This usually causes a movie to appear fine in Slide view (100 percent scale) but grainy when played in a Slide show. This is caused when the Slide show stretches the animation — distorting the pixels.

In this example, the movie is saved at a resolution of 650 by 615 pixels, it must then be scaled in PowerPoint to be exactly 650 by 615 pixels in Slide show to eliminate any distortion.

8. These instructions relate to the Format Picture dialog seen to the right.

A. Select Best scale for slide show. Also, select Lock aspect ratio and Relative to original picture size.
B. In the Resolution drop-down, select the display resolution you will be using to show your presentation.
C. Notice how this shrinks the animation in Slide view to 75 percent. It will expand to 100 percent in Slide show. (If we do not resize it, it will blow up to 133 percent and distort.)
D. Reposition the movie in Slide view after resizing it.
E. Select View/Slide show and compare the slide against the original AVI. They should be identical.
F. To change the resolution of the display you are presenting with, go to the Settings tab on the the Display Properties dialog accessed from Control Panel.

AVI Power Point Best Practices

• Export animations the exact size you want for your presentations.
• Do not use multiple color tables for PowerPoint AVI animations — they are not supported.
• Never scale an animation or image in PowerPoint's Slide view.
• Animations cannot be resized or reshaped without distortion and loss of information. Create new animations for every desired display size.
• Resize every animation with the Best scale for slide show options using the target display resolution. (This works best with flat screen and laptop LCDs.)

Raster Metafiles

Tecplot's other animation option is Raster Metafiles. RMs play in Framer — which is included with Tecplot. Framer can be launched from PowerPoint.

Framer's benefits include:

• Complete control over your presentation with a customized plot animation tool. Slow down and freeze frames or step through each frame one at a time.
• No built-in advertising, Internet connectivity or file preference overrides.
• Animations cannot be re-sized — which would result in distorted animations.
• Multiple color tables generate better plot animations with translucency and lots of color.
• E-mail and distribute Framer's small executable (36KB) along with your plot animations.
• No worries about correctly installed and/or updated Windows media players.
• Framer launches quickly and makes plots and animations easy to view.
• How to incorporate a Tecplot RM animations into your PowerPoint presentation.

1. Using the Raster Metafile Exporter, export an animation the exact size you want for your presentation.

For animations with lots of shading, color or translucency, select Use Multiple Color Tables.

2. From the Insert AutoShapes menu, open the AutoShapes dialog.

3. Using the AutoShapes dialog select a shape to represent your RM animations.

4. Right click the inserted AutoShape and select the Action Settings menu option.

5. Select either mouse click or mouse over to activate Framer.

6. Framer's default location is in the Bin folder of the TEC90 directory.

7. Hover over the movie object in Show view and the Framer Open File dialog appears.

8. The Framer Open File dialog prompts you to select which RM to play.

The default file location is the same as the PowerPoint location — so keep your RMs in the same folder for convenience.

Select which RM to play and hit OK.

9. Framer opens on top of your PowerPoint presentation.

You can reuse the object anywhere in your presenation to open other RMs.

10. Present your animations with a number of useful speed, direction, looping and frame controls.

Framer Note:

Framer will play up to 512 frames in an animation by default.

To specify a new upper limit on the total number of frames (or images) start Framer with the following command:
framer -max #frames in animation

See page 570 of the Tecplot 9.0 User's Manual.

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