Keep System In Viewport

I have a dynamic system moving at speed across a distance as simulated in Simscape Multibody, and I'm attempting to visualize the dynamics of the system automaticlaly. What would be the best way to ensure the entire system remains in camera frame over the duration of the motion? I am trying to avoid keyframing the camera, as each simulation is on the order of 100s and objects are traveling ~100 m/s - that's a lot of keyframes to set and will become prohibitively time-expensive once I start to optimize conditions.

I have attempted to use the tracking camera, but that either stays at origin (if I set aim to be at Origin) or incredibly zoomed into the specific frame (if I select one of the local frames).

The following are images of what the camera shows me if I select one of the inidividual members (the burgundy square) and what I would like to maintain visual of.

Answer 1

[Vandit]

Hi,

To answer the given problem, you can implement the ‘campos’ and ‘camtarget’ functions in MATLAB to programmatically adjust the camera position and target based on the position and motion of the system.

Here are some steps to implement this solution:

1. Use the ‘axis’ function to determine the bounding box of the system in the simulation.
2. Calculate the center of the bounding box and the distance from the center to the farthest point. This will give you the radius of a sphere that contains the entire system.
3. Use the ‘campos’ and ‘camtarget’ functions to set the camera position and target such that the entire system is in view.
4. You can set the camera position to be a point on the surface of the sphere and the camera target to be the center of the bounding box calculated in step 2.
5. Use a MATLAB script to update the camera position and target during simulation based on the position and motion of the system.

You can learn more about the ‘campos’ and ’camtarget’ functions using the link given below:

1. Set or query camera position - MATLAB campos (mathworks.com)
2. Set or query location of camera target - MATLAB camtarget (mathworks.com)