Obviously, you could animate something like this by hand but is there any software on Linux meant to simulate this kind of mechanism?
Seems like a good fit for processing maybe?
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Wouldn't you be able to do this in blender?
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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
- 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.
- 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.[…]
- Type: Text. Location: ¶2.
- Type: Article. Title: "Assembly Workbench". Publisher: "FreeCAD". Accessed: 2025-09-18T08:05Z. Published: 2025-08-17T18:19. URI: https://wiki.freecad.org/Assembly_Workbench.
- Type: Article. Location: §"Example crank and slider">§"Drive the crank". URI: https://wiki.freecad.org/Assembly_Workbench#Drive_the_crank.
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I really like motiongen.io for quick mechanical sketching
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!
Making a Strandbeest?
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I'm used to solid body modelling, so SolidWorks and stuff, but I think Fusion might be able to do animations?
Check out modelica open source physical modeling language and the rigid body model library https://openmodelica.org/
My first thought would be algodoo (formerly phun) via wine if you want an intuitive graphically driven 2d physics simulator/sandbox
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
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.
I haven't used it myself, but maybe look into 2D animation software that offers bones and rigging. You may run into the same limitations you mentioned for Blender, but who knows, maybe not?
Here's an open source one that appears to have this: https://www.synfig.org/
I think these are called 'compliant mechanisms'. The action lab had a video on the chicken head mechanism: https://youtu.be/ZKz0_kSFSP0 A quick search/AI for the term should reveal some options.
There's linkage in vindoz. I wonder if it can be run virtualized in Linux.
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