this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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Any software good for making this kind of mechanical animation/simulation? (lemmings.world)
submitted 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) by Sunsofold@lemmings.world to c/linux@lemmy.world
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Obviously, you could animate something like this by hand but is there any software on Linux meant to simulate this kind of mechanism?

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[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

Would maybe a FreeCAD assembly ^[3]^ be what you're looking for? Here is an example tutorial on making an assembly ^[1]^. You can also animate an assembly ^[2][3.1]^.

References

  1. Type: Video. Title: "FreeCAD 1.0 Assembly in 30 minutes Beginners Crash Course / Tutorial 2025". Author: "MangoJelly Solutions for FreeCAD". Publisher: ["YouTube". "MangoJelly Solutions for FreeCAD"]. Published: 2025-01-29T13:37:36Z. Accessed: 2025-09-18T07:54Z. URI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2yDGlv5wI0.
  2. Type: Post (Comment). Author: "Workshop_Notes". Publisher: [Type: Post. Title: "FreeCAD 1.0 Assembly workbench joint variables". Author: "zultron". Publisher: "FreeCAD". Published: 2024-11-30T19:32:15+00:00. URI: https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?t=92562.]. Published: 2024-12-01T09:32:38+00:00. Accessed: 2025-09-18T08:03Z. URI: https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?p=794940#p794940.
    • Type: Text. Location: ¶2.

      […]They all use Python to animate the assembly.[…]

  3. Type: Article. Title: "Assembly Workbench". Publisher: "FreeCAD". Accessed: 2025-09-18T08:05Z. Published: 2025-08-17T18:19. URI: https://wiki.freecad.org/Assembly_Workbench.
    1. Type: Article. Location: §"Example crank and slider">§"Drive the crank". URI: https://wiki.freecad.org/Assembly_Workbench#Drive_the_crank.
[–] Voyajer@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

My first thought would be algodoo (formerly phun) via wine if you want an intuitive graphically driven 2d physics simulator/sandbox

[–] itkovian@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

This is basically rigid body dynamics. I am sure there are many libraries that can handle this. For example, this might help: https://github.com/projectchrono/chrono

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 14 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Seems like a good fit for processing maybe?

https://processing.org/examples/arm.html

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 5 points 8 hours ago

Man, it's been years since I looked at Processing. I forgot it exists. This could be a good option.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 6 hours ago

I don't know about installed software, but Open Constructor is a recreation of the Soda Constructor, which is what that animation makes me think of: https://peterfidelman.github.io/constructor/

And here's another SodaPlay inspired tool as well: https://panoramx.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~maq/constructor/

Hope it helps!

[–] pricklypearbear@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Wouldn't you be able to do this in blender?

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 hours ago

Yes, but I don't think it really works well with multiple constraints like that.

You could probably do keyframe animation on geometry, but I think bones only do trees.

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 4 points 8 hours ago

No idea. I've been meaning to try blender again at some point anyway. I'll have to look into it.

[–] sidelove@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Would second Blender. Plus if you're planning on maybe 3D printing a model with certain gyroscopic properties it's easy to export the model from there 😉

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Check out modelica open source physical modeling language and the rigid body model library https://openmodelica.org/

[–] tal@olio.cafe 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I'm sure that you could use MetaPost to procedurally generate a frame, then merge them into an animation.

A newer, similar language is Asymptote, and it looks like it has animation support.