[simpits-tech] Falcon views 360?

[Marv De Beque]

Here is another thought.  Two views are all that are required using two
projectors.

View number 1 is a super wide angle view that spans the complete view area.
Obviously at 1024 by 768 this would make the view very, very pixilated or
low resolution, but that is perfectly fine.

View number 2 is also 1024 by 768, but is a narrow field of view (perhaps 10
to 20 degrees or so).  It is aimed by a moveable mirror at the point that
the pilot is looking (head tracking could provide the needed information as
to where to aim).  Two mirrors are required, but only one need move.  The
moving mirror can be servo controlled and since it is low mass it can swing
the image to the desired spot as rapidly as the pilot moves.

View number 1 represents the peripheral vision.  This is the view that the
eye sees outside of the fovea.  As you know, you can't read from your
peripheral vision, so low resolution is fine.  To remove sharp contrasts
between pixels, I would defocus the image slightly to create a natural blur.

However, images that strike the fovea can take advantage of the high
resolution image from number 2, which is actually a very narrow angular
section of one's view.  You need to expand the view of number 2 a little
beyond the normal eye's viewing angle to allow for eye movement when your
head is not pointed directly at the field of view, but you should have
plenty of resolution to spare for this.  This image would be about 3 to 4
times sharper than what you currently see in Falcon 4!

Again, as Mark pointed out, it ain't dirt cheap, but it is easily
technically achievable using ordinary off-the-shelf components and I believe
the results would be spectacular.

Marv




On 10/14/03 12:54 PM, "Mark Doran" <mark_s_doran at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I think the way Erwin describes it on his site makes most sense to me.  Like
> commercial simulation environments distributed processing makes this problem
> tractable.
> 
> I don't have a lot of faith in the availability of head mounted displays
> that have the right resolution, latency and transparency (you want to be
> able to see the physical buttons and lights in your cockpit as you fly,
> right?? ;-) anytime soon at a price I can afford.
> 
> However, the prospect of assembling perhaps a dozen computers in a little
> network for managing and rendering multiple view fields of the same "out the
> window" scene is most definitely within reach, not cheap I'll grant you but
> within the bounds of possibility at today's cost points for machines.
> 
> The old Fighter Dual had the mode that I would want for Falcon5: a master
> machine that you fly, it has your controllers and all that jazz.  Like any
> other game, that machine can be commanded to show any view but generally you
> want to pick one.  To this you slave up to eight other machines (I think it
> was 8) and each is a non-flyable replica of the game running on the master.
> In other words, the jet modeled in the game on the slave is the exact same
> one as that one the master.  The slaves can be commanded to show any view in
> the game also.  So set up master and slaves to show a different view on each
> one.  This actually worked pretty well in Fighter Duel in my experience.
> 
> The good part of doing it this way is that the game developer wouldn't have
> to change the way on-screen views are done.  The default player will only
> have one master machine and will see the same view types as today.  The
> cockpit guy with multiple slaves as well will simply have multiple monitors
> (or projectors) each set to a typical 60 degree slice of view field.
> Perhaps the only really hard part on the developer (with respect to view
> rendering that is) is making sure that the views supported don't really
> overlap in bad ways...if would be nice for the game engine to think about
> seams in other words.
> 
> This sort of approach would have some pretty serious requirements on in-game
> networking support of course.  Syncing multiple copies of a prop-job is a
> lot easier than something more sophisticated like an F-16 flying in a
> missile-laden, electronic warfare rich, combat environment.  Having on the
> order of 10 clones of the one F-16 trying to stay in sync will require, I
> would imagine, quite a lot of bandwidth.  One wonders what the implications
> on bandwidth and latency might be if you want to have more than one pilot
> link for a multiplayer session in this kind of multi-view setup...the mind
> bogles but this would be the ultimate goal I would say...think: sort of like
> the twin dome sims that MacAir has at it's facility in St Louis.
> 
> So much for thoughts on implementation strategy...I'd actually vote for any
> implementation strategy that would work, because...  More generally I think
> support for multiple view fields displayed simultaneously is the feature I'd
> say would generate the biggest advance in the state of the art for fast jet
> combat flight sims.  Who needs padlock?? ;-)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Inventmd at aol.com [mailto:Inventmd at aol.com]
>> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 7:42 PM
>> To: simpits-tech at simpits.org
>> Subject: [simpits-tech] Falcon views 360?
>> 
>> With all this talk about Falcon 5.0 coming out, I wonder if it doesn't
> make
>> sense to discuss our wish lists out loud.
>> 
>> I think the biggest detraction from realism of any flight simulation is
> the
>> inability to look at the scenery around you.  Whether it be multiple
> monitor
>> support, or headmounted video goggles that pan around cockpit slaved to
> head
>> movements, my two cents is that this issue receive some attention.
>> 
>> Perhaps the Falcon community could come to some sort of agreement in terms
> of
>> the ideal algorithm for displaying the environment as close as 360 degrees
> as
>> possible.
>> 
>> Perhaps the easiest is the headmounted goggle system with some sort of
>> tracking device.  This would be similar to the padlock view but with the
> visual
>> display tracking in Synchrony with head movements rather than panning
> about using
>> the arrow keys.
>> 
>> It would be nice to have Falcon support for scalable multiple monitor
> views.
>> Specifically, support for a minimum of four monitors would be required:
>> front, left, right, above. (And a 5th to check six) Scalability (or zoom)
> would be
>> important so that everything could be adjusted for different monitor sizes
> at
>> different distances (or video projector scenarios).  In other words, for
> those
>> with four projectors and large rooms, it might be nice for the left view
>> display to merge and even overlap into the front view display and the
> "above view"
>>  display.  For those no space and small monitors, one might need to scale
> the
>> picture down to get the appropriate field of view for the monitor position
> --
>> and certainly not overlap.
>> 
>> There are some incredibly smart people on this forum-so I figure maybe we
> can
>> get your smarts into the project.
>> 
>> John Li
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