Software

GIM     Current Version: 2025   Date: 20.12.2024   Download form 

GIM is a registered general purpose software for the kinematics and dynamics analysis of planar and spatial mechanisms, created by the COMPMECH research group in the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. The software is licensed under the assumption that it will only be used for educational purposes, no profitable task should be performed with it, and the owners do not assume any liability for the use of the software. This is a limited version that will expire by December 2025. It requires an updated Windows operating system. Before January 2026 a new version will be available.

Mechanisms with n-ary elements joined by revolute and prismatic pairs can be introduced. The position problem is solved iteratively using a numerical method, several of its conditions can be controlled and visualized. Inputs can be introduced with a polynomial up to the quintic, so position, velocity and acceleration can be specified at motion extremes. Paths of points and the area swept by an element can be plotted. Velocities and accelerations can be obtained and depicted as the motion is performed, also graphs and tables with this data can be plotted.  Every kinematic construction can be demonstrated, instantaneous centre of rotation, fixed and moving polodes, acceleration pole, acceleration circles, and so on.

Examples can be found on the right menu bar. This software is a registered software of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, UPV/EHU. A user manual of the software can be dowloaded here.

Citations

If you have used this software, please cite our ownership in any of your publications as follows:

1. In the bibliography cite: Petuya, V.; Macho, E.; Altuzarra, O.; Pinto, C. and Hernández, A.
Educational Software Tools for the Kinematic Analysis of Mechanisms. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, vol. 22, pp. 72-86, 2014

2. In the acknowledgements cite: The authors wish to acknowledge Alfonso Hernández, CompMech, Department
of Mechanical Engineering, UPVEHU for the permission to use the GIM® software. (www.ehu.es/compmech).

Comments, reports on bugs, and suggestions are welcomed here: erik.macho@ehu.eus