# 'Play' button in Manipulation and slow evaluations

I'm trying to create animation of some discrete process using Manipilate:

Manipulate[**Some graphics based on very slow computations, each step is calculated slowly then the previous**], {Step, 1, 1000, 1}]

It works fine if I move Step slider with the mouse.

But if I click the 'Play' button, animation starts but a lot of steps are missing. For example, I see the picture corresponding the 1st step, then the 13th, then 51st... And sometimes I even get '$Aborted'. Manipulate options like ContinuousAction -> False don't make any change. How can I make Manupulate display all the steps, one by one, with "Play' button? - Short way should be to adjust AnimationRate: {step, 1, 1000, 1, AnimationRate -> 1, Appearance -> "Open"}] – Kuba Jan 15 '14 at 9:53 But as I said computation time is different for each step, so it's impossible to find proper constant AnimationRate. – Epik17 Jan 15 '14 at 10:02 Better use Animate here and let it calculate all steps in advance – Sjoerd C. de Vries Jan 15 '14 at 10:44 @SjoerdC.deVries Thanks, it will work for sure, but in this case we need a lot of memory to store each step data :( – Epik17 Jan 15 '14 at 11:40 Converting the graphics to a bitmap may help if the number of graphical objects is high. – Sjoerd C. de Vries Jan 15 '14 at 11:47 ## 1 Answer You are looking for the option DisplayAllSteps -> True in Animate: (* plot with a random lag *) plot[r_] := (Pause[RandomReal[]]; Plot[Sinc[r/10 x], {x, 0, 10}]) Animate[plot[z], {z, 1, 50, 1}, DisplayAllSteps -> True]  This code fails with an $Aborted if the rendering takes more than five seconds, because of the default Dynamic timeout. Michael explained how to use DynamicEvaluationTimeout to solve this as follows:

(* plot with a longer lag *)
plot[r_] := (Pause[6]; Plot[Sinc[r/10 x], {x, 0, 10}]);

Style[
Animate[plot[z], {z, 1, 50, 1}, DisplayAllSteps -> True],
DynamicEvaluationTimeout -> 100
]

-
In this case I get \$Aborted when Step is rather big. The problem was discussed here groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica/… –  Epik17 Jan 15 '14 at 11:50
@Epik17 I believe that only happens when the rendering lag is quite high; if it is that high this won't really count as an "animation" at that point. Nevertheless there should be a work-around for that; let me see if I can find it. –  Mr.Wizard Jan 15 '14 at 11:56
I will be grateful if you find it. –  Epik17 Jan 15 '14 at 12:03
FYI: It's there in V7, perhaps: reference.wolfram.com/legacy/v7/note/… –  Michael E2 Jan 15 '14 at 12:17
Feel free to incorporate it. DisplayAllSteps is your contribution. I've got to take my daughter to school now and start my day. I'll think about other ways. –  Michael E2 Jan 15 '14 at 12:40