Ordinate 2DDocs
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Ordinate 2D documentation

Ordinate 2D is a 2D mechanics studio in the browser. You build a mechanism (blocks, pulleys, ropes, springs, gears, pins), run it with a physics engine that is checked against textbook results, and take out what you need: a figure in SVG, PDF or TikZ, an animation, a graph, a table of the run.

Getting startedThe window, the two modes, saving and opening. Your first figureAn Atwood machine, labelled and exported, in five minutes. Building scenesBodies, supports, pulleys, gears and every tool. FiguresLabels, dimensions, angles, LaTeX and free-body diagrams. Graphs and tablesPlot any quantity, add formula columns, sweep a parameter. Python scriptsBuild scenes in code, control them every step, run experiments. ExamplesOver 80 ready-made classic problems and machines. ValidationThe engine against exact results, with the numbers.

What it is for

  • Teaching mechanics. Statics and dynamics figures for lectures, exams and homework, drawn the way textbooks draw them, and short animations of the same scene.
  • Papers and theses. A figure that compiles in LaTeX (TikZ), with LaTeX labels, and the data behind a graph.
  • Learning. Change a mass, a length or an angle and see what happens; compare the motion with the formula on a graph.

How it is organised

The studio has two modes. Sandbox is for playing: drag and fling things, build quickly. Research is for results: a fixed small time step, SI units throughout, graphs, tables, the time bar, and figure export in textbook style. See Sandbox and Research.

Everything runs in your browser. Scenes stay on your computer unless you save them to the cloud or share a link; an account is optional.

Tip. Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) anywhere in the studio to search every action and command by name.