Transport Surface
The transport surface component defines a moving surface for a wide variety of conveyor belts, including straight and curved conveyors. For more details on all properties associated with the transport surface component and how to use the transport surface component with scripting, please see the API documentation.
The transport surface component can create a conveyor belt from a single continuous surface. A motor may be attached to the component to drive the transport surface. The transport surface component should be added to an entity that also has a physics component with a collider. This component enables simulation of:
- Straight conveyors
- Curved conveyors
- Nose over/under conveyors
- Mitre/injector conveyors
- Spiral/helical conveyors
- Twist conveyors
- Spline conveyors
- Roller conveyors
To simulate roller conveyors you have two options:
- Create a transparent entity in the CAD software that you can select. This approach is the most computationally efficient.
- Select the surface for each roller and bind a single motor to drive each of them. This is less computationally efficient but more physically correct.
The surface of the conveyor belt is represented by a centerline curve and a constant (fixed) width. You can create the surface programmatically or configure the surface by using feature selection. Hover over the surface you want to select, then left-click to confirm the selection. The centerline curve will be converted to a more efficient and accurate representation such as a line, arc, circle or composite curve. If none of these are appropriate, then a polyline will be used instead.
Properties
The transport surface component properties that are accessible through the inspector.
Surface
The surface for the transport surface. You can click the feature selection button to select a surface from the mesh. Hover over the surface you want to select, then left-click to confirm the selection.
Motor
The motor that drives the transport surface. You can select an existing motor to be attached to the transport surface, or click the add button to create a new motor component that gets added to the selected entity and is automatically attached to the transport surface.