Learn more about Simulink 3D Animation

Required Products

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Section Overview MATLAB Product VRML Viewer

Section Overview

The Simulink 3D Animation product is part of a family of products from The MathWorks. You need to install some of these products and other third-party products to use the Simulink 3D Animation product.

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MATLAB Product

the MATLAB software provides the tools you use to write scripts and functions in M-code. You can use your M-code scripts to set positions and properties of VRML objects, create callbacks from GUIs, and map data to virtual objects.

Note   Version 5.1 of Simulink 3D Animation software requires MATLAB software Version 7.9.

MATLAB documentation — For information on using the MATLAB software, see the MATLAB documentation. It explains how to work with data and how to use the functions supplied with the MATLAB software. For a reference describing the functions specific to the Simulink 3D Animation software, see Function Reference.

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VRML Viewer

You use a VRML viewer to visualize and explore virtual worlds described with VRML. The following are descriptions of VRML viewers:

• Simulink 3D Animation viewer — This viewer is installed with the Simulink 3D Animation product and is the default viewer for virtual worlds. You can access this viewer from either a Simulink 3D Animation block in your Simulink model, or by using the vrview and vrfigure functions with the MATLAB software.

  The Simulink 3D Animation viewer is a client to the Simulink 3D Animation server. It does not require a Web browser and it is available on more platforms than any other VRML97 viewer. It is supported on PC, Mac OS X, UNIX, and Linux platforms. The viewer is the recommended method for viewing virtual worlds on a host computer.

• Blaxxun Contact Version 4.4 — VRML plug-in shipped with the PC version of the Simulink 3D Animation product. This VRML plug-in allows you to view virtual worlds in your Web browser. The Blaxxun Contact plug-in is the only supported VRML plug-in.

You can view a virtual world in the Simulink 3D Animation viewer as soon as you install the Simulink 3D Animation product. If you want to view the virtual world in your Web browser, you need to use the vrinstall command to install the Blaxxun Contact plug-in. See Installing a VRML Plug-In (Windows).

For information on using a Web browser to view virtual worlds, see Testing the Installation. The Blaxxun Contact installation executable files are located at C:\matlabroot\toolbox\sl3d\blaxxun.

Every VRML plug-in installs Sun™ Java™ classes into the Web browser. Limit the number of plug-ins you use to avoid Java errors and conflicts. For this reason, use only the Simulink 3D Animation viewer or the Blaxxun Contact VRML plug-in on PC platforms. On UNIX and Linux platforms, use only the Simulink 3D Animation viewer.

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Installation

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