# Using Pysketcher to Create Principal Sketches of Physics Problems
Keywords: tree data structure,recursive function calls

Hans Petter Langtangen [1, 2]

[1] Center for Biomedical Computing, Simula Research Laboratory
[2] Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

#### Dec 23, 2015

This document is derived from Chapter 9 in the book A Primer on Scientific Programming with Python, by H. P. Langtangen, 4th edition, Springer, 2014.

Abstract. Pysketcher is a Python package which allows principal sketches of physics and mechanics problems to be realized through short programs instead of interactive (and potentially tedious and inaccurate) drawing. Elements of the sketch, such as lines, circles, angles, forces, coordinate systems, etc., are realized as objects and collected in hierarchical structures. Parts of the hierarchical structures can easily change line styles and colors, or be copied, scaled, translated, and rotated. These features make it straightforward to move parts of the sketch to create animation, usually in accordance with the physics of the underlying problem. Exact dimensioning of the elements in the sketch is trivial to obtain since distances are specified in computer code.

Pysketcher is easy to learn from a number of examples. Beyond essential Python programming and a knowledge about mechanics problems, no further background is required.

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