Issues and requirements for building a generic animation

Since the main function of animation is to serve as a communication tool (Law and McComas, 1992), an animation needs to be visually accurate to a user. When presenting to managers, a visually accurate animation can increase the credibility of a simulation model and analysis. Currently it is feasible to build a generic simulation model in a reasonable time period that gives a user the capability of changing the system scope, the characteristics of the whole system or specific objects, and object names. The animation associated with the generic simulation must be able to display all of the changes made by a user in the simulation. This paper presents the issues and requirements for developing generic animations and points out the deficiencies of currently available tools.