Animations in Mathematica

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A good way of presenting your work is to use animations. This is true when you have an analytical model where you need to explore the behavior of the solution under a change of certain control parameters. There's an easy way of doing this using Mathematica. Here is a sample code in mathematica

(* Define function to be animated *)
f[x_, L_] = Cos[L*x];
(* Create a table of plots *)
theTable = Table[ Plot[{f[x, L]}, {x, -4, 4}], {L, 1, 10}];
(* Export this table into an animated GIF - Replace gif with swf to export as a flash swf file*)
Export["C:\\TestAnimation.gif", theTable, ImageSize->350];

The animation will look like this





Voila!

Of course, you need to set the parameters that are relevant to your animation. You can also animate several functions. In this case, include the functions in the Plot section of the table. For example

(* Define functions to be animated *)
f[x_, L_] = Cos[L*x];
g[x_, L_] = Sin[L*x];
(* Create a table of plots *)
theTable = Table[ Plot[{f[x, L], g[x, L]}, {x, -4, 4}], {L, 1, 10}];
(* Export this table into an animated GIF - Replace gif with swf to export as a flash swf file*)
Export["C:\\TestAnimationCombo.gif", theTable, ImageSize->350];

The animation in this case looks like this




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Cite as:
Saad, T. "Animations in Mathematica". Weblog entry from Please Make A Note. http://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com/2008/05/create-mathematica-swf-animation.html