Method and system for automatically generating process animations

Abstract

According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a computer executable method for automatically generating an animation of a disassembling process or assembling process of a product, having the steps of: (a) acquiring three dimensional data (8) of the product; (b) displaying, on the computer, a group structure (60) of parts contained in the three dimensional data, wherein the group structure (60) forms a tree structure wherein a part is a node; (c) creating disassembling process definition information by displaying a process editing panel (21) on the computer and allowing a user to sequentially select a part contained in the group structure (60) displayed on the computer and position it on the process editing panel (21), wherein the disassembling process definition information consists of a node (29, 30) that defines a process, and a leaf (28, 31) that defines a part; (d) generating a disassembly algorithm for the computer to generate a disassembly animation based on the disassembling process definition information; (e) generating the disassembly animation based on the disassembly algorithm and displaying the animation on the computer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.