1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2013–2025score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN cites it as an example of computational mechanism design, especially in threads on gears, linkages and animatronics.
A Disney Research SIGGRAPH 2013 demo of an interactive system that lets non-experts design animated mechanical characters. The user sketches motion curves and the system generates optimized mechanisms and gear trains for 3D printing.
“Here's a good Siggraph 2013 demo about "Computational Design of Mechanical Characters" from Disney” (HN, 2020)
This reminded me of a recent paper on automatically designing animated mechanical characters. Some of these movements could be used to incorporate different kinds of animations into these characters. [this video]
Automatic design of animated mechanical characters.
Is there a standard way to formally describe a mechanical machine? Similar to how a .obj file defines a 3d shape? Some standard way of describing piece types, interactions, properties, movement ranges, etc. Then one could have a computer use the format to learn/find interesting configurations based on a catalog like [link] especially if paired with simulation like done in this Disney research project using gears and linkages [this video]
Disney project using gears and linkages with simulation.
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