In this paper, a geometric approach to the passive realization of any planar compliance with a redundant compliant mechanism is presented. The mechanisms considered are either simple serial mechanisms consisting of five elastic joints or simple parallel mechanisms consisting of five springs. For each type of mechanism, realization conditions to achieve a given compliance are derived. The physical significance of each condition is identified and graphically interpreted. Geometry based synthesis procedures to achieve any given compliance are developed for both types of mechanisms. Since each realization condition imposes restrictions solely on the mechanism geometry, the procedures allow one to choose the geometric properties of each component (from a set of admissible options) independently from the selection of the elastic properties of each component
