MechDesigner Reference & User Interface

Feedback-Area

The Feedback-Area is below the graphic-area.

It has five areas.

Extended Hints

When you move your mouse over a command icon in a toolbar, the tool-tips shows in the Extended Hints box.

Note: To see all of the Extended Hint, you may need to drag the separator bar upwards, and/or to the right, a short distance.

You do not need to enable Hints and Tool-Tips.

See Application Settings

Message Area

The most recent message is at the top of the list.

There are four columns in the Message Area.

Count :	The message number since you last cleared the Message-Area of messages.
Topic :	Importance Level: – Information; – Warning; – Error - save your work now!
Message :	Relates to the command. This is the message you should read!
Time :	When the message was displayed.

To clear messages from the Message Area:

1.Right-Click, with your mouse-pointer in the Message Area

2.Click Clear Messages in the shortcut menu

Message Sounds:

If you enable sounds in Application Options | Accessibility tab, you hear a honk with each new message.

Master-Machine-Angle (MMA) ; Revs ; Machine-Angle-Indicator

The Master-Machine-Angle is the virtual axis, and the virtual input to all kinematic-chains in the model. You can imagine it as a drive shaft that rotates one time per machine cycle.

Master-Machine-Angle (MMA) :	Range 0 – 360, equal to one Machine-Cycle
Revs :	Number of machine-cycles
Machine-Angle-Indicator :	Read-write - the exact machine-angle

To edit the Master-Machine-Angle:

Exactly : use the Machine-Angle Indicator to:

Move to a Machine Angle :	Enter a Machine-Angle between 0 and 360.
Inch :	Use the Spin-Box to increase or decrease the Machine Angle by the Spin-Increment. Edit the Spin-Increment (by factors of 10) to change the inch-step.
Jog :	Press & Hold the Spin-Box to continuously increase or decrease the Machine-Angle.

Approximately : Drag in the MMA

Mouse-button-down and move you mouse to the left or right, with your mouse-pointer INSIDE the Master-Machine-Angle area.

The orange triangle (▲) below the MMA moves with your mouse-pointer.

Kinematic and Kinetostatic Vector Scale Buttons

Use the Velocity, Acceleration, Force, and Torque scale buttons to increase or decrease the length of vectors in the graphic-area.

The buttons do NOT change the values of the vector.

Velocity (V) and Acceleration (A) Vector buttons

Click the up /down arrow-buttons next to:

•V to increase or decrease the length of Velocity vectors

•A to increase or decrease the length of Acceleration vectors

See Point Properties dialog to display the Velocity Vector and Acceleration Vector of a moving Point

Force (F) and Torque () Vector buttons

Click the up /down arrow-buttons next to:

•F to increase or decrease the length of Force vectors

• to increase or decrease the length of Torque vectors

See Force Vectors: Calculate and Force Vectors: Display to display Force and Torque Vectors at joints.

See Configure Power Source to make sure the Power flows through the model as intended.

Animation-Speed Slider

Use the Animation Speed Slider to speed-up or slow-down the Animation Speed of the model.

Mouse-button-down and move you mouse to the left or right, with your mouse-pointer INSIDE the Animation-Speed Slider to change the animation speed.

The Animation-Speed does not change the kinematic or force analysis, or motion synchronization between kinematic-chains.

To edit the simulation speed or machine-speed: see Edit menu > Machine-Settings > Cycling Parameters.