Hands On — The 3D Simulator Is Live
The simulation is no longer something you watch. It's something you use.
What's New
The interactive simulator now runs in full 3D with a perspective camera you orbit by dragging the mouse. The assembly sits inside a wireframe housing, inside a containment box, and you can tilt the entire mechanism to point the thrust in any direction.
Three things make this version different from the earlier build:
Ghost Thrust Arrow
An indigo arrow extends from the housing centre showing the predicted thrust direction before anything moves. It's computed purely from the assembly orientation — no RPM needed. Tilt the assembly and the arrow follows.
This is the feedback loop that matters for the physical prototype. You need to know which way the device will push before you power the motor. The ghost arrow is that answer.
Assembly Frame Axes
Three coloured arrows at the housing centre — red (X), green (Y), blue (Z) — show the assembly's internal coordinate frame as you tilt it. A faint indigo disc shows the rotation plane. When the assembly tilts, you can see exactly how the race track planes reorient inside the housing.
This makes the relationship between tilt and thrust direction visible. The thrust arrow always points along the assembly's negative Y axis after rotation.
Virtual Joystick Controls
Two circular pads below the simulation canvas:
- Left pad (cyan) — camera orbit. Drag to rotate your viewpoint around the device.
- Right pad (indigo) — assembly tilt. Drag to rotate the mechanism inside the housing.
These work on both mouse and touch. The arrow keys still work for tilt on desktop, and mouse drag on the canvas still orbits the camera. But the joysticks mean the sim is fully usable on a phone or tablet — no keyboard needed.
The Full Control Set
Everything is adjustable in real-time:
| Control | What it does | |---------|-------------| | RPM (0–100) | Motor speed. Ramp up and watch the force build. | | Offset (0–0.5) | Race track eccentricity. More offset = higher impulse. | | Pulse (0–1) | Speed modulation depth. Zero = no bias. | | Separation (0–1) | Counter-rotating pair spacing. | | Gravity | Micro-G, Moon, or Earth. | | Camera joystick | Orbit the 3D view. | | Tilt joystick / arrows | Rotate the assembly inside the housing. |
Set pulse to zero. Watch the force vanish. That's the control case — constant angular velocity, no time-asymmetric forcing, no directional bias. Turn it back up. The bias returns.
What You're Looking At
The HUD on the right shows live data:
- Net force — the smoothed magnitude of the total force vector
- Fy bias — the vertical component of the force (the one that matters for thrust)
- Thrust vector — numerical readout of the predicted direction
- BIAS DETECTED — lights up green when the force bias is measurable
The force plot at the bottom shows instantaneous force (teal) against running average (yellow). The sawtooth pattern in the instant trace is the 3x pulsing — three pulses per revolution. The flat average line is the directional bias.
Try It
The simulator is live at indigo-nx.com/sim. No install, no login, runs in your browser.
The funding page is live. Seven phases from rapid prototyping to independent verification.
Built with Claude Code. Published at indigo-nx.com.