📘 Examples#

This section showcases a variety of example projects built with FlapKine, each crafted to demonstrate different kinematic configurations and application scenarios. These hands-on examples provide a practical understanding of how to configure, simulate, and visualize kinematic chains using the FlapKine interface.

Each example includes:

  • A brief description of the kinematic configuration

  • A project file with a pre-configured scene

  • In addition to the project file, it contains data required to reproduce the project from scratch.

  • Instructions on how to run the simulation and visualize the results

  • Instruction on how to reproduce the results by making a entirely new project from scratch

These examples are ideal for users looking to quickly familiarize themselves with FlapKine features and experiment with real setups.

Before beginning, let’s first review what a FlapKine project folder typically contains.

Project Folder Structure#

Each example project follows a standardized structure automatically created by FlapKine during project finalization. Below is an outline of the folder contents:

<project_folder>/
├── scene.pkl          # Scene Class object saved as a pickle file
├── config.json        # Configuration file with simulation and rendering settings
└── data/
    ├── inv_results/   # Inverse kinematics results (angles)
    ├── stl/           # STL files for the model at each time step
    └── videos/        # Output folder for rendered simulation frames or video

Configuration Details (config.json)#

The configuration file stores the complete simulation setup derived from the GUI. It includes:

  • VideoRender

    • OutputPath: Path to the folder where rendered frames will be saved (e.g., data/images)

    • STLPath: Path where STL data will be written if enabled (e.g., data/stl)

    • FrameFormat: Format for output frames (e.g., PNG, JPG)

    • resolution_x/y: Horizontal and vertical resolution values

    • film_transparent: Boolean indicating background transparency (currently set to false)

  • Camera

    • location: Position of the camera in 3D space [x, y, z]

    • focal: Point in space the camera is looking at [x, y, z]

    • up: Camera’s up direction vector [x, y, z]

  • Light

    • location: Light source position [x, y, z]

    • energy: Scalar representing light intensity

  • STL: Boolean flag indicating whether STL export is enabled

  • Reflect: Axis of reflection applied to the scene ("XY", "YZ", "XZ"), or null for no reflection

The scene.pkl file is the pickled version of the Scene class, which contains all the information about the simulation. This file is loaded when the project is opened in FlapKine.

See Methodology for more details on Scene and other classes in Flapkine.

Example Projects