On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:15:52 -0800 Richard Harke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
A rotation whether in degrees or radians only makes sense if the axis of rotation is specified. This would have to be on a per aircraft basis. Also I'm sure that many if not most control surfaces do not
simply rotate about a single axis but involve sliding motion and
rotation of multiple parts and often, rotation while sliding.
No, this is only really relevant for the 3D model. But even complicated multi-segment flaps are indexed by degrees with respect to aero coefficients. Further, the flight control system still outputs degrees - not normalized units. Once you get to a certain level of detail of course the signal to an actuator might be in volts. How do you normalize that? For any normalized aerosurface command, you still need two pieces of data to make an absolute: the normalized value and the travel range. Plus, as I've mentioned before, if you output in degrees (or radians) you are outputting an absolute, which is also eeffectively what is require for the rendering system directly. When I did IRIX GL programming ten years ago the API call used degrees to rotate. Converting to a normalized value, then back again is a waste.
Jon
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