Interactive Positioning with the Reach Mode  

This provides you with a powerful positioning tool. It takes advantage of the manikin's inverse kinematics capability to reach the exact position only or the exact position plus the three orientations   in the 3D space.

You can select the segment of the manikin to perform the reach (also known as the end effector), then activate the Reach Mode by selecting either of the two Reach icons. The point to reach will be specified by the position of the V5 compass. You then must snap the compass to any existing geometry. As soon as the compass is released, the selected segment automatically reaches the compass's position.

More about activating Reach functionality

The difference between the two is that the resolution is not made the same way; otherwise, the functionality is the same.

Reach (position only). The final orientation of the segment respects only the x,y,z direction of the compass.

Reach (position & orientation). The final orientation of the segment respects all three directions of the compass.

 

 

More about activating Reach functionality

The Enhanced Snap for Reach Mode will enable you to get a more predictable and acceptable posture of manikin's segment after a reach using the Reach (Position & Orientation). This will speed up the manikin positioning process by shorting the time of fine tuning the posture after a reach operation.

After enabling the Reach (Position & Orientation), select the segment.  Then you can directly scan the geometries' surface with the interactive compass or drag the V5 compass just like you did before.  Once the desired location on a surface is found, the reaching process is launched by clicking on the left mouse button (LMB) or by snapping the V5 compass.  The order of these operations can be inverted.

As it was before, the reaching process takes a fraction of second but, at the end, the segment will be perpendicular to the surface at the position of the compass which will have a new orientation based on the 2D (directions) constraint resolution.  The segment's twin still appears on the compass and follows the movements of this one for fine tuning.

At the end, you will get the compass associated to a Fix On and a segment's twin in order to ease the posture fine tuning. 

There is no change of the interface apart the presence of the interactive compass for the surface selection without having to grab the V5 Compass.


 

For example, the resulting position of the hand on a box will look like the following:



See also Keeping the Settings of a Hand grasp

  1. From the main menu, select File > Open. Select the Reach.CATProduct file from the samples directory.

  2. Open the file.

  3. Right-click on the compass and select the Snap Automatically to Selected Object. This is not required if you are using the Reach (Position & Orientation) command.

  4. In the 3D view, select the target geometry.

  5. The compass snaps to the selected geometry.

  6. Select a Reach Mode icon.

  7. Place the compass at the Reach location.


     

  8. Select the segment that must reach the location specified by the compass, in this example, the hand. The selected segment automatically reaches that point, as illustrated below.


     

  9. With Reach Mode still active, manipulate the compass to fine-tune the posture.

  10. Drag the compass away from its original location, the selected segment will follow the motion of the compass. If the compass is picked and placed at another location, the segment will try to reach the new target.

  11. Select another segment. This segment becomes the active segment for the Reach and will follow the compass wherever it goes as long as the command remains active.

  12. If the Reach Mode is active, select Undo to make the manikin resume the posture it had before Reach was applied.

  13. To deactivate Reach Mode, select the Reach Mode icon a second time.

 

Segment Twins

This functionality is available only for the Reach (position & orientation) command.

When the compass is snapped on a hand or foot in Reach Mode, an image of the entire hand or foot in its current posture will follow the compass. The image will stay there until the Reach mode is exited.

Setting the Twin options

From the main menu, select Tools > Options > Ergonomic Design & Analysis > Human Builder.

The number displayed at the compass location indicates the distance between the target and the segment. It therefore measures the Reach precision: a distance of 0 indicates a perfect Reach.
The Reach distance is also displayed on the status bar and is updated continuously:
 

The Manikin eyes follow the 3D compass with Reach and IK Mode

This proposes a more natural behavior for the manikin's vision when it is performing a reach or IK on an object.  The vision of the manikin is directed to the object the manikin is trying to pick up, which would be more like human behavior. See the Customization Section.