An Outline of USYCAMS

In the last twenty years or so, computer graphics has become a fundamental tool for the study of mechanisms, as made apparent by the software available in this area. We can cite IMP (Integrated Mechanisms Program) as one of the earliest software packages developed for the analysis of arbitrary linkages (Sheth and Uicker, 1972). A few years later KINSIN III, a package meant for the synthesis of mechanisms, was introduced (Rubel and Kaufman, 1977). The graphical part of these early packages consisted essentially of 2-D lines. More mechanism software with improvements in their graphics has been produced, such as LINCAGES (Erdman and Gustafson, 1977), MINN-DWELL (Kota et al., 1987) and SIXPAQ (González-Palacios and Angeles, 1991b).