Good Question: Animation Paths

Today’s good question comes from Binoy. He asked how you can create an animation of an AutoCAD model using a path.

You can use the ANIPATH command, which was introduced in AutoCAD 2007. It is only accessible from the View menu (View>Motion Path Animations) or by typing the command name. Using ANIPATH, you can specify a point or a path for both the camera and the target (where the camera is looking). For example, the camera could be located on a fountain in the middle of a park and the target path could be a circle that goes around the park. The resulting animation would show the park as the camera swivels around a stationary point on the fountain. If, on the other hand, you used the circle as the camera path and the point as the target, the resulting animation would show the fountain as the camera traveled around it.

If you plan on using a path for either the camera or the target (or both), you’ll need to create the path geometry before launching the ANIPATH command. You can use just about logical object for a path (circle, line, polyline, ellipse, spline, etc). You don’t have to define a “point” object in order to specify a point as the camera or target. You can simply snap to an existing object or enter coordinate values.