File Exchange Pick of the Week

August 13th, 2010

Animating Double Pendulum

Jiro's pick this week is Animated Double Pendulum by Alexander Erlich.

This is a fun pick. Animations have a special place in my engineer's heart. If pictures paint a thousand words, animations paint (1000 x NumberOfFrames) words. With his submission, Alexander illustrates the interesting dynamics of a double pendulum. The cool thing is that you can specify different parameters (gravity, masses, and link lengths) and initial conditions (angles and angular velocities) to see their effects.

As of today, he actually has 2 other entries (Spinning Top, Vibrating String) that use animation to convey concepts.

Comments?


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By Jiro Doke

Jiro is an application engineer at MathWorks. His job allows him to evangelize about MATLAB by traveling around the country to various universities and companies. He is a MATLAB addict, but he doesn't seem to mind being labeled as one.

11:25 UTC | Posted in Picks | Permalink | 5 Comments »

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5 Responses to “Animating Double Pendulum”

  1. Sadek Abouda replied on August 20th, 2010 at 15:31 UTC :

    Tt’s a physics phenomenon

  2. Sadek Abouda replied on August 20th, 2010 at 15:32 UTC :

    it’s a physics phenomenon

  3. saber replied on August 20th, 2010 at 23:33 UTC :

    the idea is so very intelligent

  4. dhivya replied on August 23rd, 2010 at 14:09 UTC :

    <

  5. jiro replied on August 23rd, 2010 at 16:57 UTC :

    A few people have asked how I made the animated GIF. I used the IMWRITE function to export to a GIF. GIF format has options to append frames and specify delay time.

    This page talks about it as well:
    http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-48KECO/?solution=1-48KECO

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