GordenSun

GordenSun / cad-power-animations

Public

Parametric build123d CAD models with mechanical-power animations, deployed as a static three.js viewer to GitHub Pages.

19
2
100% credibility
Found May 24, 2026 at 23 stars -- GitGems finds repos before they trend. Get early access to the next one.
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AI Analysis
JavaScript
AI Summary

This is an open-source project that creates interactive 3D animations of real mechanical machines using free design tools and a simple web viewer. Users can browse models like a bicycle, drone, robot arm, or solar system, watch them animate in their browser, and adjust settings to see how things like gear ratios or pedal cadence affect the motion. It's aimed at anyone curious about how machines work — from students to engineers to curious minds — with no programming knowledge required to enjoy it.

How It Works

1
🔍 Discover animated 3D machines

Someone finds this project online and sees beautiful animated mechanical models that show how real machines work.

2
🌐 Open the interactive viewer

They visit the webpage and pick from a gallery of models — a bicycle, a planetary gearbox, a drone, or even a robot arm.

3
⚡ Watch power flow through machines

The chosen model comes alive — they see pedals turn into wheel motion, gears interlock, or propellers spin in perfect balance.

4
🎛️ Play with sliders and controls

They drag sliders to change speed, adjust gear ratios, or toggle features like 'roll forward' on the bicycle to see it actually move.

5
Choose your path deeper
📚
Learn how it works

They read the explanations on the page and click through different models to understand the mechanics behind each one.

🛠️
Try building their own

A more technical person follows the guide to regenerate a model and sees how the Python code creates the 3D shapes.

✨ Grasps how machines really work

Whether they just watched or dove into the code, they now understand how mechanical power flows through gears, chains, cranks, and linkages — and they had fun doing it.

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Star Growth

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AI-Generated Review

What is cad-power-animations?

This project is a collection of parametric CAD models that visualize how mechanical power flows through real machines. Built with Python and the build123d library, it generates interactive 3D models that animate in a browser-based viewer. The viewer runs entirely static on GitHub Pages, powered by three.js. Each model includes a JavaScript sidecar that drives animation parameters like rotation speed, gear ratios, and motion sequences. You get a working demo the moment you open the deployed site—no install required.

Why is it gaining traction?

The hook here is the "sidecar pattern": the same animation logic runs both in the local CAD Explorer and in the static browser viewer. That means what you see in the Python-generated model is exactly what gets deployed. The models themselves are substantive teaching aids—bicycles with chain drives, planetary gearboxes with correct kinematics, Geneva mechanisms with intermittent motion—rather than toy examples. The GitHub Actions workflow handles deployment automatically on every push, so the demo is always current.

Who should use this?

Mechanical engineers who want to share interactive mechanism explanations with non-CAD users. Educators building visual teaching material for kinematics or drivetrain design. Developers exploring the build123d ecosystem who want a reference architecture for browser-based CAD previews. If you need production-grade tooling or extensive documentation, look elsewhere—this is a personal project with 19 stars and minimal docs.

Verdict

At 19 stars and a 1.0% credibility score, this is an early-stage experimental project. The architecture is clever and the demos work, but there's no test suite, the documentation is sparse, and the project lacks the maturity for mission-critical use. Worth watching if you're interested in parametric CAD-to-web pipelines, but don't bet production work on it yet.

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