simscape.multibody.Component Class

Component objects use connectors to connect to each other. For example, in a simscape.multibody.Multibody object, you can attach a simscape.multibody.Solid object to the simscape.multibody.WorldFrame object by connecting the R connector of the Solid object to the W connector of the WorldFrame object.

Component objects only support frame connectors. A frame connector represents a 3-D, right-handed, orthogonal coordinate frame in a component object. Connecting frame connectors from different component objects identifies the frames in a kinematic structure. In other words, the frames become coincident and aligned during the simulation.

Most types of component objects, such as simscape.multibody.WorldFrame and simscape.multibody.RigidTransform, have a fixed set of frame connectors, and the connectors are not changeable. However, because the simscape.multibody.RigidBody and simscape.multibody.Multibody objects initially have no connectors by default, you need to explicitly add connectors. Note that, in a component object, every connector must have a unique name. The table shows the frame connectors for component objects:

The visualize method of a simscape.multibody.CompiledMultibody object allows you to visualize a 3-D graphical representation of the corresponding simscape.multibody.Multibody object. Component objects have a DoVisualize property that specifies whether a component object should be visualized in the 3-D graphical representation. If the property is true, the component object is visualized, otherwise the object is hidden. In a hierarchical Multibody or RigidBody object, the DoVisualize property of the top-level object controls the visualization of the component objects inside the top-level object. If the DoVisualize property is false, the component objects contained by the object are hidden.

Only three types of component objects support visualization: simscape.multibody.Solid, simscape.multibody.RigidBody, and simscape.multibody.Multibody. The default value of the DoVisualize property is true for these objects. For the other types of component objects, the default value of the DoVisualize property is false, and attempting to set the property to true generates an error.