Visualizing Physics: Looking for a simple 3D drawing program

[Jogis]

Hi guys,

I am looking for a simple 3D drawing program, where I could draw a bunch of balls of different
colors and maybe some bulky arrows. If I could make a small movie (or a GIF) by making the balls
move, that would be a nice extra.

What would be the simplest solution? Mathematica? Google Sketch-up? Is there maybe a simple
open-source program that runs on Linux for that purpose?

Thanks a lot!

 

[oli4]

You could try povray, it's simple, powerful and free
just google for povray, povray physics animations

Cheers,

 

[robphy]

http://vpython.org/

 

[tormondo]

Google Sketch-up, obviously and without any alternative. It has a plug-in that will do the job for you, sketchyphysics: http://code.google.com/p/sketchyphysics/downloads

Have a look at youtube samples: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=sketchyphysics