Here's an AnyScript file to start on if you have not completed the previous lesson:
demo.lesson6.any.

So far, the graphics of the model you have developed is what we can call a stick figure representation. This is a straightforward way of seeing the model and it reflects the mechanics very vividly, but it does not look very physiological. You may be wondering how you can add cool bones and other geometries that will impress your colleagues and look good in your presentations. You may want to put your model into an environment such as a room, a treadmill, or a bicycle to illustrate the purpose of the model.

However, there may be other reasons than mere aesthetics why it can be advantageous to work with real geometries. When attaching muscles, for instance, a real bone geometry gives you an instant visual feedback on where the muscle is located in the organism as illustrated by the two pictures above.

Adding geometric models such as bones is fortunately very simple. All you need is a file with a 3-D graphical representation of the bone or other component you may wish to add. The format of the file must be STL ascii. STL is a very simple graphical file format that basically contains triangles. Virtually any CAD system you can think of can save geometry on STL format, so if you have your geometry described on IGES, STEP, DXF or any other usual type, just run it through your favorite CAD system and convert it to STL. STL comes in two varieties: ascii and binary. AnyBody needs an ascii file, so please make sure to choose that option if you create your own STL files in a CAD system.

The bone models you see on the pictures above are a bit elaborate for a short tutorial, so we shall start with something a little simpler. What we want to do now is to add a dumbbell geometry to the arm model we have just created. You can find a file to use here. Right-click the link, choose "save as", and put the file in the directory where you have placed the arm model.

The dumbbell should be added to the forearm, so the first thing to do it to add a reference to the STL file we just saved to the definition of the forearm:

AnyDrawSeg DrwSeg = {};
AnyDrawSTL DrwSTL = {
  FileName = "dumbbell.stl";
};
}; // ForeArm

Try reloading the model again. You will probably see nothing but grey the Model view.  A closer investigation of the problem would reveal that the entire arm model is actually situated inside the dumbbell handle. This is because the STL file was created in millimeters, where the arm model is in meters. Rather than going back to whatever CAD system was used and scale the dumbbell model down 1000 times, we can add the scale definition to AnyScript in the following way:

AnyDrawSTL DrwSTL = {
  FileName = "dumbbell.stl";
  ScaleXYZ = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001};
};

When you reload the model, the picture you get should be similar to what you see below. The dumbbell is visible now and has the right size, but it is sitting at the center of gravity of the lower arm rather than at the hand, and it is not oriented correctly.

The fact is that, when you attach something to a segment, it is positioned at the segment's origin which is usually the same as the center of mass. However, you can also attach stuff to points, so moving the dumbbell to the hand is simply a question of moving the reference to it from the ForeArm segment to the PalmNode that we defined previously. Block the entire AnyDrawSTL folder with the mouse and cut it out. Then re-insert it under the PalmNode like this:

AnyRefNode PalmNode = {
  sRel = {0.27,0,0};
  AnyDrawSTL DrwSTL = {
    FileName = "dumbbell.stl";
    ScaleXYZ = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001};
  };
};
AnyDrawSeg DrwSeg = {};
}; // ForeArm

On reload, this produces a new picture with the dumbbell attached at the right location, but it is still not oriented correctly.

We want to rotate the dumbbell 90 degrees about the y axis. We could do that by going back to the CAD system and modifying the dumbbell STL file, but an easier option is to rotate it directly inside AnyScript.

A geometrical object that you insert gets the same orientation as the coordinate system it is attached to. In this case the dumbbell is attached to PalmNode. Nodes are actually reference frames with the ability to be positioned and oriented relatively to other reference frames, for instance a segment or another node. We have already positioned nodes by means of the member vector sRel and relative orientation happens similarly with the member matrix ARel, the relative rotational transformation matrix. We wish to rotate the dumbbell 90 degrees about the local y axis and hence write:

AnyRefNode PalmNode = {
  sRel = {0.27,0,0};
  ARel = RotMat(90*pi/180, y);
  AnyDrawSTL DrwSTL = {
    FileName = "dumbbell.stl";
    ScaleXYZ = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001};
  };
};

As a final cosmetic touch, you may want to change the color of the dumbbell. This can be done by adding the property RGB to the STL file reference:

AnyDrawSTL DrwSTL = {
  FileName = "dumbbell.stl";
  ScaleXYZ = {0.001, 0.001, 0.001};
  RGB = {0.2,0.4,0.5};
};

The RGB property specifies the blend of colors Red, Green, and Blue in that order for displaying the STL geometry. The combination above produces a dull blue shade.

This completes the Getting Started with AnyScript tutorial. The final result of the efforts is in demo.arm2d.any.