Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Paul Surgeon wrote: On Wednesday, 27 October 2004 02:26, Curtis Olson wrote: People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and day/night/dusk effects. You just reminded me of something I wanted to ask. Is the "enhanced lighting" in FG still under construction? It's based on an OpenGL extension that is really only supported by SGI hardware. I don't really like it either (I think the point sizes have to be adjusted to reflect reality, but it might be better to draw a pentagon like disk instead, where the center vertex has the appropriate color and the edge verteces are blended towards approximately 0.2. I guess it would be faster also. Other than that I'm very impressed with FG and what everyone has managed to achieve. Great work guys! Today I went for a flight around SFO and I actually enjoyed it which means it has come a long way! ;) I don't think you want to test FlightGear 0.7 again :-) Lots of rough spots that still need polishing but I guess we'll never quite get "there" because FG will always be evolving into a bigger, better and more feature filled sim. True. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
On Wednesday, 27 October 2004 02:26, Curtis Olson wrote: > People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and > day/night/dusk effects. You just reminded me of something I wanted to ask. Is the "enhanced lighting" in FG still under construction? It looks terrible and slows my system to a crawl when switched on. Or is my hardware (Ti4200) too old and I need a newer card that supports the lighting? The light from the airport beacon looks nice - can't we use that sort of lighting for the runway and taxiway lights (obviously scaled down a bit). Other than that I'm very impressed with FG and what everyone has managed to achieve. Great work guys! Today I went for a flight around SFO and I actually enjoyed it which means it has come a long way! ;) Lots of rough spots that still need polishing but I guess we'll never quite get "there" because FG will always be evolving into a bigger, better and more feature filled sim. Paul ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
On Wednesday 27 October 2004 02:46, David Megginson wrote: > Great report, Curt -- I'm glad to hear that FlightGear held up > its end so well. One of the most impressive things about > FlightGear is its ability to model marginal visibility fairly > realistically -- watching the runway come into view in > FlightGear in 1 SM visibility really is like watching the > runway in real life, except that we don't have ragged cloud > bases and sheets of rain (yet). Compare that to the visuals > in Elite, and you'll see what I mean. > > > All the best, > > > David Yes, it's great to hear it went down (hmm... shouldn't that be up;) so well:) LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Curtis Olson wrote: People were impressed with the smoothness of the panel and the modeling of the different systems and built in sensor errors. People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and day/night/dusk effects. We did a lot of demoing in the SFO area and people really liked the building and bridge and other landmark models. You sure know how to flatter people :-) Erik (I'm glad they liked it that much) ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Curtis Olson wrote: John Wojnaroski stopped by and it was good to finally meet him. I went out to his place today in LA to see the 747 sim he is building in his living room. Another thing that a *lot* of people asked about was glass cockpits. John W. has done some really good work on this front for his 747 project, but it is kind of isolated and specific to his system. So this is another area where there is a lot of interest, but FG is a bit weak. Not to be defensive, but Curt and I discussed this briefly. High end aircraft, like the 747, have countless subsystems that are type specific and it's really hard to build something this complex with the "one-size-fits-all" approach and hope that things like XML and Nasal can handle any and all configs. Secondly, it will require more than one machine for a decent system; there is just soo much you can stuff into a five pound bag. FG used as a sim engine has no peers, but there are limits BTW, it's not the living room, ;-) I was going to use one of the guest bedrooms, but the icy stare that suggestion received quickly squelched that plan and I meekly settled for a corner in the upstairs loft over the garage. The up side is it has enough room and size to put in a reasonable projection system. And it was a pleasure to meet and chat with the "father of FG". Curt and the folks at ATC have a very nice product for pilots interested in training and maintaining proficiency on instruments. Regards John W. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: Perhaps one may want to rent out a video camera next time, and take some video? We can snip some footages from here, some clips from there, and come up with a 30 seconds video for FlightGear. We were literally mobbed from dawn to dusk with zero breaks. There were a number of things we were all hoping to do, but we had no chance. The constant flow of people was relentless. Here's a picture of our cockpit: http://www.atcflightsim.com/products/710/Large/panel.jpg Notice that the gauges are drawn on an lcd panel and not "real". Screen shot is on the ground in Burbank (KBUR). Here is a screenshot from our instructor gui ... http://www.atcflightsim.com/products/710/Large/instrmap.jpg Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Perhaps one may want to rent out a video camera next time, and take some video? We can snip some footages from here, some clips from there, and come up with a 30 seconds video for FlightGear. Just a thought, Ampere On October 26, 2004 08:26 pm, Curtis Olson wrote: > The expo was 3 days long and there were a ton of people each day. Our > booth was generally a mob scene, often with several people waiting a > turn to fly. Interestingly because this was largly a "pilot" > convention, many people didn't want to fly and submit to the scrutiny > and smart alec commets of the "audience." But we got enough takers to > keep the sim busy. :-) Overwhelmingly the response to our sim (and > FlightGear) was very positive. We had endless people sit down and fly > the simulator. Over the course of the 3 days we continuously > repositioned the sim in new locations and situations, continually > changed weather and other conditions, had people crash into the ground, > etc. etc. I was very please to see our software ran rock solid the > entire time. We just fired up the sim at the beginning of the day and > left it run until they kicked us out in the evening ... it was rock > solid through everything we through at it. I was very pleased with the > results of this "stress test". ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Great report, Curt -- I'm glad to hear that FlightGear held up its end so well. One of the most impressive things about FlightGear is its ability to model marginal visibility fairly realistically -- watching the runway come into view in FlightGear in 1 SM visibility really is like watching the runway in real life, except that we don't have ragged cloud bases and sheets of rain (yet). Compare that to the visuals in Elite, and you'll see what I mean. All the best, David -- http://www.megginson.com/ ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 11:22, Curtis Olson wrote: > Does "up2date" automatically get me to FC3 and beyond or do we need to > do a complete reinstall? you will need to re-install. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Richard Keech wrote: incidentally, FC3 will be out very soon. It should be publically available on 8 November. http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/ Does "up2date" automatically get me to FC3 and beyond or do we need to do a complete reinstall? Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 10:56, Curtis Olson wrote: > Richard Keech wrote: > > >Curt, > > > >in the ATC system, on what OS platform does FG run? > > > > We are running it on Linux. Currently a debian install (of some mixed > vintage.) I've been dabbling with Fedora Core 2 lately and have been > pretty impressed with it, so I'm tempted to move that direction in the > future. incidentally, FC3 will be out very soon. It should be publically available on 8 November. http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/ ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Richard Keech wrote: Curt, in the ATC system, on what OS platform does FG run? We are running it on Linux. Currently a debian install (of some mixed vintage.) I've been dabbling with Fedora Core 2 lately and have been pretty impressed with it, so I'm tempted to move that direction in the future. Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
Curt, in the ATC system, on what OS platform does FG run? On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 10:26, Curtis Olson wrote: > I am still out of town for the rest of the week, but I thought I'd post > a quick report from the AOPA convention this past weekend in the LA area. > > I was there with ATC flight simulators to demo their ATC-610 upgrade > package which turns their old 100% analog ATC-610 into a new, modern > digital flight simulator using FG as the visual system, and the core > software infrastructure, along with proprietary software for the flight > dynamics and instructor station and their cockpit hardware. The new > system is FAA Level 3 FTD certifiable which is a lot tougher to get than > PC-ATD certification, and allows you to log more hours towards the > different ratings. > > The expo was 3 days long and there were a ton of people each day. Our > booth was generally a mob scene, often with several people waiting a > turn to fly. Interestingly because this was largly a "pilot" > convention, many people didn't want to fly and submit to the scrutiny > and smart alec commets of the "audience." But we got enough takers to > keep the sim busy. :-) Overwhelmingly the response to our sim (and > FlightGear) was very positive. We had endless people sit down and fly > the simulator. Over the course of the 3 days we continuously > repositioned the sim in new locations and situations, continually > changed weather and other conditions, had people crash into the ground, > etc. etc. I was very please to see our software ran rock solid the > entire time. We just fired up the sim at the beginning of the day and > left it run until they kicked us out in the evening ... it was rock > solid through everything we through at it. I was very pleased with the > results of this "stress test". > > Common questions and comments (beyond how much does the whole thing > cost) were: > > Is that running MSFS? (or what software are you running?) > > Are those real gauges? (we are using photo-based textures to draw > virtual instruments on an LCD display behind a panel cutout. Many > people came and left thinking they were real gauges. We even had one > guy come by and comment to his buddy, "Oh, they are using those gauges > from XYZ company." :-) > > People were impressed with the smoothness of the panel and the modeling > of the different systems and built in sensor errors. > > People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and > day/night/dusk effects. > > We had some people stop by that use simulators to train pilots to > transition from IFR in minimums to visual flying and *very* carefully > examined how much of the approach lighting system was actually visible > at specific visibility distances and at specific points of the approach > and seemed to think we were right on with those. > > We did a lot of demoing in the SFO area and people really liked the > building and bridge and other landmark models. > > I ran into Robin Peel of airport and navaid DB fame. There was a guy > standing there asking if we used FG for any of our software, he said > something about nav databases, I looked at his name tag which read > "Robin", he looked at my name tag, and we had one of those "aha!" type > moments. :-) The next day he released new nav/apt data. > > John Wojnaroski stopped by and it was good to finally meet him. I went > out to his place today in LA to see the 747 sim he is building in his > living room. > > Alex and Trisha Perry stopped by the last day and we really appreciated > their insistance on sticking around after the show to chip in on some of > the take down and clean up. > > We were near the Elite booth (who showed up with their igate product) > and back to back with the Precision Flight Controls booth. It was > interesting to compare our sim to our nearest "competitors". It was > also interesting to see them come check out our stuff and watch their > competitive/defensive mechanism kick in. :-) Like anything, everyone > has their strength's and weaknesses and their best target audience, but > it was very interesting to compare and see where each of us set the bar > in various areas. > > A lot of people asked about GPS modeling which we (and FlightGear) > really don't do a good job of yet. I know that Roy has started to work > on some gps internals, but it would be cool someday to be able to mimic > in flightgear the sorts of gps units people are putting in airplanes > these days ... such as the garmin 430/530. > > Another thing that a *lot* of people asked about was glass cockpits. > John W. has done some really good work on this front for his 747 > project, but it is kind of isolated and specific to his system. So this > is another area where there is a lot of interest, but FG is a bit weak. > > Overall we had a really good show and FG performed spectacularly. > Collectively I think we are doing some really good work that c
[Flightgear-devel] Quick report from AOPA
I am still out of town for the rest of the week, but I thought I'd post a quick report from the AOPA convention this past weekend in the LA area. I was there with ATC flight simulators to demo their ATC-610 upgrade package which turns their old 100% analog ATC-610 into a new, modern digital flight simulator using FG as the visual system, and the core software infrastructure, along with proprietary software for the flight dynamics and instructor station and their cockpit hardware. The new system is FAA Level 3 FTD certifiable which is a lot tougher to get than PC-ATD certification, and allows you to log more hours towards the different ratings. The expo was 3 days long and there were a ton of people each day. Our booth was generally a mob scene, often with several people waiting a turn to fly. Interestingly because this was largly a "pilot" convention, many people didn't want to fly and submit to the scrutiny and smart alec commets of the "audience." But we got enough takers to keep the sim busy. :-) Overwhelmingly the response to our sim (and FlightGear) was very positive. We had endless people sit down and fly the simulator. Over the course of the 3 days we continuously repositioned the sim in new locations and situations, continually changed weather and other conditions, had people crash into the ground, etc. etc. I was very please to see our software ran rock solid the entire time. We just fired up the sim at the beginning of the day and left it run until they kicked us out in the evening ... it was rock solid through everything we through at it. I was very pleased with the results of this "stress test". Common questions and comments (beyond how much does the whole thing cost) were: Is that running MSFS? (or what software are you running?) Are those real gauges? (we are using photo-based textures to draw virtual instruments on an LCD display behind a panel cutout. Many people came and left thinking they were real gauges. We even had one guy come by and comment to his buddy, "Oh, they are using those gauges from XYZ company." :-) People were impressed with the smoothness of the panel and the modeling of the different systems and built in sensor errors. People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and day/night/dusk effects. We had some people stop by that use simulators to train pilots to transition from IFR in minimums to visual flying and *very* carefully examined how much of the approach lighting system was actually visible at specific visibility distances and at specific points of the approach and seemed to think we were right on with those. We did a lot of demoing in the SFO area and people really liked the building and bridge and other landmark models. I ran into Robin Peel of airport and navaid DB fame. There was a guy standing there asking if we used FG for any of our software, he said something about nav databases, I looked at his name tag which read "Robin", he looked at my name tag, and we had one of those "aha!" type moments. :-) The next day he released new nav/apt data. John Wojnaroski stopped by and it was good to finally meet him. I went out to his place today in LA to see the 747 sim he is building in his living room. Alex and Trisha Perry stopped by the last day and we really appreciated their insistance on sticking around after the show to chip in on some of the take down and clean up. We were near the Elite booth (who showed up with their igate product) and back to back with the Precision Flight Controls booth. It was interesting to compare our sim to our nearest "competitors". It was also interesting to see them come check out our stuff and watch their competitive/defensive mechanism kick in. :-) Like anything, everyone has their strength's and weaknesses and their best target audience, but it was very interesting to compare and see where each of us set the bar in various areas. A lot of people asked about GPS modeling which we (and FlightGear) really don't do a good job of yet. I know that Roy has started to work on some gps internals, but it would be cool someday to be able to mimic in flightgear the sorts of gps units people are putting in airplanes these days ... such as the garmin 430/530. Another thing that a *lot* of people asked about was glass cockpits. John W. has done some really good work on this front for his 747 project, but it is kind of isolated and specific to his system. So this is another area where there is a lot of interest, but FG is a bit weak. Overall we had a really good show and FG performed spectacularly. Collectively I think we are doing some really good work that compares very well with people that are doing this full time as their primary business. And in a few areas we are totally kicking their butts which is also kind of fun to see. :-) Best regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.hu
