Later versions of Prep allowed the user to view data from the spectrum and time history graphs on the model surface in an time stepped animation and static 3d models. These animations gave users an understanding of what is going on that the line graphs simply can't capture. These animations have been ported to the ACS-SASSI User Interface. The User Interface uses a newer version of Open GL than was used in prep to take advantage of the hardware advancements made in current video cards. The data format that the video card requires for animation can not be written directly by the FORTRAN modules. Therefore, the frame output of the modules was slightly modified for use by the User Interface and this extra processing step has been added.

The user must provide an animation list file and a frame storage directory by either browsing or manually typing the location of the File and the Desired directory. The Animation list file format is the same format frame listing file format from SASSI-PREP (all *.dispani, *.tfiani, and *.impani). The file will be read in a similar fashion in the SASSI User Interface, however the first line header information will be ignored because the processing step can take a long time based on the size of the model and the number of frames to be processed, so the user should only do this once. The user can then modify the frames to be used in the animation on the animation loading screen. The data description and the plot type box are for informational purposes. However, the user should fill these in will help in using the animation in future runs.

When the user selects the Process Animations Frame List from the menu a window will pop-up and as the user to input data. Once the data has been input the user will press the OK button and the processing will begin. A Progress bar will appear in the lower right hand side of the screen and tell the user what percentage for frame from the animation have been converted at this point.

After the frames have been converted an entry will be made into SASSIani.xml which keeps track of the location of the animations on the system along with some information for the animation. The frame storage directory will be filled with frame files that are now in the proper binary format for animation. The user should not attempt modify these binary files other than to delete them.