Williamson Forensic Consulting - Specializing in Motor Vehicle Accident Reconstruction

Just as good data form the foundation for a good analysis, good analysis of a collision must be the foundation for any animation.  The animations here were made with the collision analysis program PC-Crash.  PC-Crash is primarily a very powerful analysis tool, but also happens to produce high quality animations.  The animations are therefore true to the original analysis, and obey all of the laws of physics.  This is an important distinction that separates PC-Crash animations from many other animations.

The animations shown below are available in several different formats.  Large frame sizes and higher frame rates result in animation files which are quite large.  For this reason, files here are smaller for easy downloading.  "ZIP" files are compressed the smallest and are an ".exe" file that when run will place the animation on your desktop.
Animation Set 1:  This shows a simple intersection collision.  The first animation is deliberately small for fast downloading, but could be rendered to be much larger and finer.  The left turning vehicle is struck on the right front, rotating the vehicle counter clockwise. The occupant models have been generated with the software MADYMO within PC-Crash.  For the unbelted case, the occupant dynamics near the end with the lack of a right front seat are of course not accurate, but the purpose of the occupant animations are to show the initial vehicle interior contact.
      Intersection Collision             No Seat Belt             With Seat Belt
Copyright 2006
Animations
Animation Set 4:  This animation shows the calculated dynamics of the cyclist collision shown in the "Pedestrian and Bicycle Collision" description under the "Services" heading.  The path of the cyclist across the hood and windshield can be used to assess the cyclist's speed.  Try using the slider bar on the media player to advance this forward more slowly.  There are two different options for how to download this animation.
                              AVI file (1.55 MB)     ZIP file(303 KB)

Animation Set 3:  This is a collision between two vehicles at an intersection.  While the road here is shown to be flat, the raised heights of the curb are modelled, and the Jeep can be seen to roll up onto and then off the raised sidewalk.  There are two different options for how to download this animation.
                         AVI file (3.25 MB)                 ZIP file (796 KB)
Animation Set 2:  This collision involved a stopped pedestrian struck by a car where the impact location and throw distance of the pedestrian were not known.  The contact of the head at the base of the windshield, however, indicates that the speed of the car was not low and that the driver had probably braked very little before the collision.  Compare the head contact location for two different speeds (shown at 1/10th speed).  Use the slider on the Media Player top step it back and forth.  (This is shown at a very low frame rate, for ease of downloading, but could be made to play much more smoothly if required.)
                     20 km/h Impact                  60 km/h Impact