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Simulator Background
Properties:
To open the simulator background
Properties
Box, depress Select.
Then double-click or control-click in a clear area of the
simulation window. In the Properties Box, you can set a wide
variety of properties. These properties are discussed in
detail under the topic headings listed below.
Table
of Contents. Click on
the topic of interest.
Reference
System & Grid Properties
- X enabled / Y
enabled: These
options control whether or not the X-axis and
Y-axis are displayed. Default condition is to hide
the axes.
- X grid enabled
/ Y grid enabled: These
options control whether or not horizontal (X) and
vertical (Y) grid lines are displayed. Default
condition is to hide the grid lines.
- Horizontal /
Vertical step: These
properties set the size of the intervals on the
X-axis and Y-axis. The step sizes are in
terms of distance measures, such as meters (the
default), rather than pixels. An axis interval is equal
to two grid intervals.
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The step sizes are also
controlled by three
hotspots
located near the grid's
origin. The scales controlled by the
hotspots are indicated in the figure to the right.
To change the X and Y scales,
click-and-drag
the hotspots. Changing step sizes using hotspots
does not change the values in the
background properties.
The origin itself is a
hotspot that you can click-and-drag from the lower
left-hand corner to a new location.
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Path
Display Properties
- Show
path: This option enables
the rendering of the path traveled by a body during
Run
mode (simulations). The
simulator renders the path by drawing a
representation
(see next bullet) of the path at regular intervals. The
path remains on display in Stop
mode after the simulation
concludes.
- Represent Path
as: This option determines
how the simulator represents the path. The choices
are:
- dots of the same color as
the body;
- pictures of the
body;
- speed vectors that
represent the body's speeds at the times the
representations are drawn; and
- net force vectors that
represent the net forces acting on the body at the
times the representations are drawn.
- Display path,
steps: This property
determines how frequently the simulator draws a
representation of the path. This property sets the number
of "refresh steps" between renderings. Hence, the time
interval between subsequent renderings of the path is the
product of this property and the refresh
time.
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Time
Parameters
- Stop time,
seconds: The duration of
simulation runs (i.e., Run
mode), provided that the
Stop
button is not pressed. The
default duration is 10 seconds. The
maximum duration is 60 seconds.
- Refresh time,
ms: This property
determines how often the simulator refreshes the
simulation window during simulation runs
(Run
mode). The
default
refresh time is 100 ms or 0.1 sec. The
minimum is 20 ms and the maximum is 200 ms.
Low refresh times are more computationally intensive than
high refresh times but may provide more accurate results,
especially with regard to complicated motions.
Together with the Display
path, steps property, the
refresh time also determines how often the simulator
renders a body's path.
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Gravitational
Potential Properties
These two properties should only
be used in conjunction with the gravity
source element.
- Show zero level
of gravitational potential energy:
Show the zero level as a thick
dashed green horizontal line.
- Zero level of
gravitational potential energy:
The Y coordinate (in
meters or another distance measure) of the zero
level line. Default value is zero.
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