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Show HN: A working 3D model of an Enigma machine (enigma.design)

1 points by primitivesuave ↗ HN
I watched the excellent Veritasium video [1] on the Enigma machine, and watched the full animation by Jared Owen [2], but was still a bit confused on how the inner mechanics of an Enigma machine work. I used Astra to build out the inner components through a combination of reference images, writing out hundreds of extremely detailed prompts, and building my own inspection tools to ensure that every part is sized and positioned in a historically accurate way.

It's still a work in progress, but would love any feedback on the experience so far!

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsBZOcqZerk 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybkkiGtJmkM

27 comments

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psolidgold
Seems pretty cool but unfortunately the poor performance on mobile (Chrome 154 and Android 17) makes it unusable for me. I'll have to check it out on desktop.
primitivesuave
Thank you for the tip about mobile performance, my apologies for neglecting it and I'm working on fixing it right now!
palad1n
Tested and fine on 6th gen iPad Mini, if anyone is interested.
anonydsfsfs
I love the presentation! Would you mind sharing the source code?
soltanov
+1. source code will be useful for educational purposes.
primitivesuave
Thank you for the kind words! As mentioned in the other comment below, I'll open-source it very soon and update the site with a GitHub link.
ted_dunning
It would be nice to be able to back up in the sequence. There were a few times where I realized I had not fully understood a previous step and would have like to be able to review some previous steps.

Otherwise this is completely excellent!

primitivesuave
Thank you for the suggestion and the kind words! Completely agree that the navigation is a bit unintuitive, will work on fixing that tonight :)
adityamishra241
This is really cool. The attention to detail on the internal mechanics is impressive, especially the inspection tools you built. Looking forward to seeing where you take it!
utopiah
Neat, would be great to have it in WebXR with hand tracking, imagining 2 modes :

- AR where the machine can be put on your desk, next to documents

- VR where the machine is in context, e.g. a 3D model of German Naval Signals HQ in Guernsey, eventually stepping back to a broader context.

primitivesuave
This is such a great idea. I didn't know about WebXR before reading your comment, and was delighted to see that this is a relatively easy thing to implement. I need to find some VR goggles to borrow so I can test this out, but I'll optimistically push out an update within the next day with the WebXR update.
virtualcolossus
Good job, I like the many cutaways to show exactly what's going on inside.

You may be interested in my simulation of Enigma (https://enigma.virtualcolossus.co.uk) which I wrote back in 2021 (pre-AI!). One of several I've done.

Try it on an Android phone to look around it in VR or on PC/Mac for easier use. You can even send messages to other users over the internet using the radio & Morse key.

primitivesuave
Yours is amazing work, and certainly a higher degree of fidelity than I was able to achieve with AI assistance. The initial motivation behind this was largely driven by curiosity around the rotor motion (the ratchet and pawl assembly), and then into how the wiring actually works. For my brain, I needed to press the keys a hundred times and watch the current flow before it started making sense.

I'm curious about how you worked out the inner dimensions and part placements so accurately. Thank you for providing this marvelous free resource!

heurekamala
Cool work. There are some of this educational gems here. Is there a site which combines these treasures (like in a virtual museum?)
primitivesuave
Thank you! Very honored to be considered an educational gem :)
dmcrespo
Really cool project! The only thing I noticed is that the performance feels a bit slow at times, and it could use a little more fluidity, especially when interacting with the model.

Other than that, everything feels really well done. Building something like this in JavaScript/HTML, especially with a 3D model this detailed, must be quite challenging from an optimization standpoint.

Great work!

primitivesuave
Thank you!! I was also hitting performance issues, especially on mobile - I think the latest version has gotten it a bit closer to a smoother experience, but there is still a lot of low-hanging fruit on making this more fluid (especially the step transitions).