Introduction
Animatics’ SMI software provides an easy-to-use Microsoft Windows-compatible interface to your Animatics SmartMotor™. Using SMI, you can define multi-axis motion control for 1 to 100 SmartMotors. SMI includes a terminal program, program editor, and source level debugger. Standard SMI features include a Tools menu to set PID tuning parameters and plot the step response, motor info and dynamic status tracking, and online help and documentation. The latest release of SMI can open multiple windows for program editing, instantly address multiple motors, and upload programs from motors. Simply write and download your application to the configured SmartMotor and reboot the motor to start your application working.
Download SMI at no cost from the Animatics website (www.animatics.com) or from the product CD-ROM, and use the installation wizard to install SMI, SMIEngine™, and Coordinated Motion.
The SMIEngine is a component library that uses the Component Object Model (COM) to define functions that perform the following tasks:
- Configuring and communicating with Animatics SmartMotors
- Compiling/Downloading/Uploading/Debugging compiled user programs (“.smx” files)
- Controlling the motors using Coordinated Motion (Contouring or Host Mode)
- Creating circular and linear path coordinates used for Coordinated Motion
The latest release of SMI leverages the strengths of the original SMI application with many advanced features. It adds extensive user interface improvements, functional enhancements, and new utilities that help you develop, test, run, and deploy your Animatics SmartMotor applications.
Polling
The Animatics SmartMotor Interface has special user-defined polling features to help you monitor important functions conveniently. Monitor different status bits, variables, and I/O from any motor in a chain, even during application execution.
SmartMotor Playground
SmartMotor Playground
Would you like to be able to see and modify your motion control settings on-the-fly? With SMI , you can. Connect your SmartMotor to your computer, start SMI , and the SmartMotor Plaground window opens. SMI automatically detects connected motors and gathers data in the Motor Info tab. In the SMI Playground, you can modify Torque, Velocity, and Position settings in real-time.
Using numerical values for input, or the interactive interface with drag and drop, sliders, and radio buttons, you can see the results immediately.
Project Feature
Projects Feature
Do you need to put an SMI project on hold? You can save your communications, configuration, and preferences settings with the new Project option. The Project menu option allows you to manage and save your workspace settings and applications configuration settings.
Views
New dockable windows
The Animatics’ newest release of SMI workspace now includes dockable windows that you can access from the toolbar. Simply double-click the title bar to toggle the window between floating and docked views.
The Information view displays error and information messages and allows you to go directly to the message’s source location.
The Serial Data Analyzer
The Serial Data Analyzerview displays data transfers between your computer and Animatics SmartMotor™. You can filter the data to display only the information you want; for example, choose to display transmitted data, received data, or echoed data.
The Configuration view
The Configuration view displays the current communication and motor configuration in a hierarchy structure that you can save as a Project for reuse.
The Terminal view
The Terminal view creates a tabbed page for each port so you can communicate with individual or multiple SmartMotors.
Additional views have been added to help you collect data and monitor SmartMotor operation. The Chart View is a collection of user-defined motor parameters (Chart Items) that you can select to monitor during motor operation in a dynamic graphical display.
These are just a few of the new features available in the latest release of SMI . Other enhancements include:
- Syntax Highlighting - Uses different colors for different code elements, such as keywords or comments
- Status bar information - Displays the current cursor position and the SmartMotor language version of the active file in the status bar
- Context Menu - Right mouseclick displays a menu of frequently-used commands
With SMI, you get a robust software application specifically designed to manage your SmartMotor motion control requirements.
