Create a movie which plays through your Z planes at a chosen XY angle.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my colleagues asked me how he could create a movie in Volocity which would allow him to play through his Z-stack in the 3D planes view using a chosen XY angle, as he wanted to present his sample from different angles. The solution is very simple and as movie making is something that most of us like to use to better illustrate our research, I thought that this might be of interest to you as well. Here are the steps that I told my colleague to follow...

• Open up your dataset in Volocity.
• Switch to the 3D Slice Image view. This view allows you to present your image data in the most useful orientation. Set the slice orientation using the Move Slice toolbars, or by entering values for the X or Y degrees of rotation of the slicing plane. In this step you are selecting the XY angle that you would like to play through in your finished movie.

• Switch to the XYZ Image view and use the inspection (cross-hair) tool to select the first Z plane by clicking anywhere at the top of the XZ view. The XYZ coordinates that appear will help you to identify this first Z plane (Z: 1). Select "Show Bookmarks" from the image menu and then create a bookmark of this view either by selecting "Add Bookmark" from the image menu or by using the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl" "B". Your bookmark will appear in the bookmark pane alongside the Image. Bookmarks record the position and appearance of information, allowing you to store the current view of your image data. In this case, you are storing the view of the first Z plane.

• Next use the inspection (cross-hair) tool and the XYZ coordinates to select the last Z plane by clicking anywhere at the bottom of the XZ view (Z: 68 for this dataset). Create a bookmark of this new view either by selecting "Add Bookmark" from the image menu or using the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl" "B". You have now stored the view of the last Z plane. We now want to create a movie which will gradually animate the transition between these two bookmarks and therefore play through all of your Z planes, from top to bottom.

• Switch to the 3D Planes view. Your image is now shown in the XY orientation that you selected previously in the 3D slice view and the two bookmarks that you created in the XYZ view are still visible in the bookmark pane. Selecting either bookmark will restore the appearance of the data to the bookmarked state (i.e. the correct Z plane in this example), but the data will now be presented in the correct XY orientation in this 3D Planes view.
• Select "Show Movie" from the Image menu. The movie making pane will now appear underneath your image data. Using this movie interface you can create a free flowing movie which animates the changes that you have made to the Image view. Bookmarks are the starting point for making movies in this way. Click and drag both of your bookmark thumbnails from the bookmark pane to the movie pane to create two sequential keyframes in the movie. Click "play" and the movie will gradually animate the transition between the appearance of the image in the first bookmark and its appearance in the second bookmark. This means that in this example, the movie will play through all of your Z planes (at the correct XY angle).

• Select "Make Movie" from the Movie menu to create the movie frames and add them to the library. A new image sequence will be added to the library with the word 'Movie' appended.  
• The sequence may be exported as a movie by clicking on the thumbnail in the Volocity library and choosing Export... from the File menu. Export the movie as either QuickTime or avi. The movie that I made is shown below.