507 Mechanical Movements: an 1868 engineering reference, now animated

507movements.com is an online edition of Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements, the classic technical reference by Henry T. Brown. The site carries the original illustrations and text of the book's 21st edition, published in 1908, and brings part of the collection to life with animations.

The book behind the site

The collection first appeared in 1868 and covers the movements its subtitle calls most important in dynamics, hydraulics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, steam engines, mill and other gearing, presses, horology and miscellaneous machinery — including, it says, many movements never before published and several only recently in use.

How it is organised

Each mechanism is a numbered engraving with its own descriptive paragraph. The index is by subject rather than by page: escapements, epicyclic trains, differential movements, cams, governors, valve gear, rotary and steam engines and dozens of kinds of gearing all have their own groups, and the numerals in it refer to the engravings and paragraphs, not to pages. Entry number one illustrates the transmission of power by simple pulleys and an open belt, in which both pulleys rotate in the same direction.

The animations

Animated versions of many engravings run on a custom JavaScript library written for the site, which uses the HTML5 canvas element. Finished animations are marked by colour thumbnails on the thumbnail pages; the rest remain still for now. The site says more will be added over time until all 507 are complete. The library is described as highly experimental and is proprietary for the moment, though its author says it may be polished and released as open source later.

Rights and upkeep

The site is owned and operated by Matt Keveney. The static images and text are taken from the book, which is long out of copyright, so they can be reused freely; the layout and the animated illustrations are not. The webmaster asks visitors not to mirror the collection, noting that every image was individually scanned and retouched, and asks anyone who uses one to tell their visitors where it came from.