Arena® 3DPlayer

Add Dimension to Your Animation

Advantages
• Arena 3DPlayer helps make your animations
more life-like with 3D imagery and navigation
• Visualization of animation in 3D is effective for
presentations to decision makers and others
• Ability to mount the camera on an object for a
“fly through” of the animation
• Video record your 3D animation to share with
others

Overview
With Arena® 3DPlayer®, you can enter into a new dimension in simulation
with Arena. Whether you want to “fly through” your plant floor, zoom into
your distribution center, or observe your customer service operations,
Arena 3DPlayer can help add life-like 3D imagery and navigation to make
your animations spring to life as never before.

Features
Arena 3DPlayer allows Among the many features of Arena 3DPlayer you will find:
you to add 3D imagery Shape Editing/Shape Management
and navigation to make • Add/Edit 3D shapes in the layout or library using a hierarchical Shape
compelling, life-like Editor
animations. • Save modified shapes to the library for future use
• Cut, Copy, and Paste from one shape to another
• Support for mapping texture images to 3D shape surfaces
3D Animation Constructs/Functionality
• 3D Levels — Animate tanks, continuous flow (e.g., pipes), or expression-
based conveyors (e.g., Packaging template conveyors) in 3D
• Specify a global or resource shape to rotate-by-expression around the
y-axis during an animation run
• Option to keep entity or transporter shapes vertical when they move
along sloping guide paths (such as a person walking on a hill, a
helicopter flying, or a carrier hanging from a chain conveyor)

2D Dashboard Features
• User Interface — Organized and designed to perform
and conform to Arena standards
• View and share your animation
• Movie-making — Record smooth-running distributable
movies of running animation in .avi format using the
built-in AVI Capture tool
• View > Attach Camera command to attach a viewpoint
to an entity or transporter while the animation is
running
Miscellaneous Features
• Picture ID matching on import from Arena
• Ability to view basic properties of an entity, transporter,
resource, or global while the animation is running (by
double-clicking)
• Check errors and system behavior through object
dialogs and transformation tabs
Benefits
In three easy steps, Arena 3DPlayer allows you to produce
compelling 3D animations of Arena simulation models.
Step 1 — Layout the animation.
Begin with an Arena animation, a CAD layout, a 3D picture
of your system, or start from scratch. Arena 3DPlayer
contains drawing tools to construct a realistic, to-scale 3D
representation of your system. Your layout can contain
static shapes representing anything that does not move
(walls, furniture, plants, signs, etc.), as well as guide paths,
Arena is a registered trademark of Rockwell Automation, Inc.
All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.
Publication AREN3D-PP001B-EN-P – March 2010 Copyright ©2010 Rockwell Automation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in USA.
Supersedes Publication AREN3D-PP001A-EN-P – October 2009
waiting areas, status indicators, machines, and other
components.
Step 2 — Customize the animation.
Assign built-in or custom 3D shapes to the resource states,
global levels, transporter states, and entity pictures in your
Arena model. Your shapes can be simple or life-like. The
built-in shape library gets you started, the VRML import
capability provides more options, and the powerful Shape
Editor lets you be as creative as you like.
Other dynamic 3D animation objects include tank
level, flow fills, and distributed fills. You can also use the
Dashboard pane for animated display of information–text
descriptions; clocks; variables; or tables of values, pictures,
plots, level fills, and histograms.
Step 3 — Show the animation!
Running the animation is as simple as opening the
Arena animation data and clicking “Go.” Arena 3DPlayer’s
intuitive 3D navigation interface helps you pinpoint areas
of interest. And you can even mount the camera on an
object for “fly-through” animations.
When your animation is ready, you can record smooth,
precise videos of your 3D system animation in the
universal AVI movie format to send your AVI movies to
anyone!
More Information
To see an online demonstration of Arena, please consult
our Web site at www.ArenaSimulation.com and look at
our Demo on Demand and Web seminar offerings. While
there, you can also download product brochures, white
papers, and application case studies.
For more information and pricing of Arena software,
please contact the U.S. Rockwell Automation office at
(+1) 724-741-4000 or contact your local Arena reseller.
A listing of worldwide Arena resellers may be found at
www.ArenaSimulation.com.
www.ArenaSimulation.com