For some reason, lost in the mists of time, I decided to try and produce an applet to show the workings of an internal combustion engine. Then, because I had never fully appreciated how a rotary engine worked, I decided that I would produce an animation of a rotary engine.
The results of this playing around are two applets that show a little bit of the workings of an engine
I have often toyed with the idea of both improving them (by double buffering and increasing the fidelity of the models for example), and of producing models of other types of engine such as a two stroke engine. At the time of writing, however, other "projects" have stolen my time and interest.
N.B. Issue 2.0 of the applets are now double buffered !
The Java 3D API, however, may give me a good excuse to revisit the idea in the future
If these models are of interest to you, and you would like them improved then please contact me here
The engines are available to view (Piston Engine, Rotary Engine) and Download
If you do download either of the engines all I ask is that you please let me know