Bender/Documentation/2.0/Modules/Armatures

Introduction and Acknowledgement

Author: Johan Andruejol, Kitware
Contributor #1: Julien Finet, Kitware
Acknowledgements: This work is supported by the Air Force Research Laboratories.
Contact: Julien Finet

Module Description

The Armatures module creates, edits and animates (poses) bone armatures using forward kinematic.

A bone is defined by its head (start point) and its tail (end point). Bones are organized in an armature structure that handles interaction between bones.

An armature has two modes:

• Rest mode: bones are added, edited or removed.
• Pose mode: bones are animated with forward kinematic. In this mode, the user can only rotate the bones around its head.

The module is split in three parts:

• The panel Armature controls the properties of all the bones of the armature.
• The panel Bones lists the bones hierarchy of the current armature.
• The last panel Bone controls the properties of the currently selected bone.

Use Cases

Armature of a skeleton

Panels and their use

Overall This sections describes the top part of the Armatures modules. Armature: The armature selection combobox allows to create, rename or delete any armature. The currently selected armature in this combobox will be display in the Bones view with all its bones. The checkbox next to the Armature label controls the visibility of the armature and all its bones. Armature Mode: Choose the mode of the armature. An armature can be in two modes: Rest Mode: The rest mode is the edit mode. This is were the bones can be created, removed and modified to create the full desired armature. Pose Mode: The pose mode is the mode for forward kinematic. Once the armature created and tweaked in rest mode, this mode allows the user set the armature in a pose position by interacting with the bones. Reset Pose:

Overall armature panel

Armature

Armature section

Bones

Bone section

Bone

Bones section

Similar Modules

• Bender modules: Workflow
• Slicer modules: Annotations

References

Skeletal animation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_animation