[X3D-Public] chaining TimeSensors, TimeSensor cycleTime, and end-of-cycle event?

Don Brutzman brutzman at nps.edu
Tue Oct 13 11:57:44 PDT 2009


A common animation task is to start a second TimeSensor clock after
a first TimeSensor clock finishes.

A hopefully easy way to do this would be to chain TimeSensors together,
in other words, have the completion of one interval ROUTEd to trigger
the start of the second clock.  This is particularly important for
single-shot clock animations.

the TimeSensor cycleTime field indicates the beginning of a new loop.
This is not the same as end of loop, which is what is needed for this
functionality.

So don't authors need an end-of-cycle event for TimeSensor in X3D?

Should we add a cycleComplete (or somesuch) field to TimeSensor?

p.s. we have come up with a prototype to deal with this missing functionality.
It's called TimeDelaySensor and works well.  But I'd think that adding
prototypes is a bit involved for such a common task, particularly if you
want to do it using lightweight/mobile Interactive profile.

	https://savage.nps.edu/Savage/Tools/Animation/
	Time Delay Sensor Example
	Time Delay Sensor Prototype

What do other scene authors think?  Thanks for considering this question.

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br           brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270   MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA  work +1.831.656.2149
X3D, virtual worlds, underwater robots, XMSF  http://web.nps.navy.mil/~brutzman






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