SPASUR: Interactive Visualization of the Coupler Surfaces of the Spatial 4C Mechanism

This paper presents a software tool entitled SPASUR (SPAtial SURface) for the interactive visualization of the coupler surfaces of the spatial 4C mechanism. The 4C mechanism is a two degree of freedom spatial four-bar linkage. The path traced by a point attached to the coupler or floating link defines a surface in space. An interactive graphical user interface has been created and integrated with kinematic analysis routines to generate and display these coupler surfaces. The result is a user-friendly and efficient means of generating and visualizing the coupler surfaces of the spatial 4C four-bar mechanism.