[Flightgear-devel] Scene building, perception and complex systems
I have just posted a longer collection of my thoughts and experiments with what makes a scene (a cloudy sky, a cockpit, a forest,...) credible and what isn't helpful in the forum (it contains a lot of pictures, so it simply isn't useful to post it here as well). If you find either this http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/pics/rain_reflection.jpg or that http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/pics/haleakala_before.jpg a bit strange, you may find my writeup interesting, although admittedly it's lengthy, and I'm quite sure to many here on the list it will not be exactly news. Cheers -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Scene building, perception and complex systems
On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 7:13 AM, thorsten.i.r...@jyu.fi wrote: I have just posted a longer collection of my thoughts and experiments with what makes a scene (a cloudy sky, a cockpit, a forest,...) credible and what isn't helpful in the forum (it contains a lot of pictures, so it simply isn't useful to post it here as well). To save others some time, here is the direct link to the forum post: http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5t=11992 Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson: http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/ http://www.flightgear.org - http://gallinazo.flightgear.org -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Scene building, perception and complex systems
To save others some time, here is the direct link to the forum post: http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5t=11992 Thanks... I can't believe I missed to include that! * Thorsten -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] Nasal: airportinfo() question
Hi, I see that for Nasal scripts we can call airportinfo() to get the name and runway info for the closest airport. We can also call airportinfo(ID) to get the details of a specific airport. However, what I don't see is a way to request a list of the n closest airports (or the airports within a specified radius of my current location.) Is this (or something similar) possible to do within nasal? I'm playing around with an auto-land script and sometimes when you are flying in an area with several airports near by, the airport that is technically the closest to you, might not be the one you are interested in. Thanks, Curt. -- Curtis Olson: http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/ http://www.flightgear.org - http://gallinazo.flightgear.org -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Nasal: airportinfo() question
It does appear that the FGPositioned interface offers everything we would need. I don't know about optimization issues, but it can return a list of all the airports within a certain radius of your current location (or any arbitrary location.) I also see a function that will sort by distance. Then if the user selects a specific airport, airportinfo() already has the functionality to return all the airport details. I see that the current airportinfo() function calls FGAirport class methods which are wrappers around the FGPositioned classes. I'm not sure exactly why that is unless it's related to finding the right instance of the database. I haven't dug too deeply into the code. Martin is right, we could probably slap something together pretty quickly, but it might make more sense for James or someone else more familiar with this code to put together a solid sensible structure and make sure all the pieces tie together in a logical consistent manner. That's probably not me, at least not this week. Perhaps in the future if this is still an open issue and the need rises up higher on my priority list, I'll dig in and make an attempt. Ultimately, what I'd like to do for my project is have an auto-land gui button that will pop up a list of nearby airports. The user selects the one they want and then a list of runways pops up, perhaps ranked based on the prevailing wind conditions. Then when the destination is chosen, the aircraft flies to the airport, enters the downwind pattern, base, final, lands at exactly the target spot. (Maybe with just a little randomization so we don't wear out the concrete always hitting the exact same spot every time.) Best regards, Curt. On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Scott wrote: James Turner and I had a bit of a e.mail conversation about this some time ago. My (non-existant) C++ skills aren't up to writing anything, but James thought everything was in the underlying code, and shouldn't be too difficult to expose to Nasal. I've had three disk failure since that time, so I've lost the e.mail thread, but we did define quite a few wishlist functions. BTW I didn't know you could get the closest airport, that is still quite handy for some scenarios, but getting all airports within a radius of a specified geo-coord is even more useful. Scott. On Monday 09 May 2011 23:45:04 Curtis Olson wrote: Hi, I see that for Nasal scripts we can call airportinfo() to get the name and runway info for the closest airport. We can also call airportinfo(ID) to get the details of a specific airport. However, what I don't see is a way to request a list of the n closest airports (or the airports within a specified radius of my current location.) Is this (or something similar) possible to do within nasal? I'm playing around with an auto-land script and sometimes when you are flying in an area with several airports near by, the airport that is technically the closest to you, might not be the one you are interested in. Thanks, Curt. -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel -- Curtis Olson: http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/ http://www.flightgear.org - http://gallinazo.flightgear.org -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Understanding the design of aircraft nasal scripts
On 04/08/2011 10:40 PM, Catherine James wrote: Recently, I've been spending a good bit of time attempting to program all of my most-used aircraft so that I can engage and disengage the autopilot through the joystick. I've been able to get this to work on the Seneca II with a short nasal script in Nasal/SenecaII.nasal that sets the /autopilot/CENTURYIII/controls and /autopilot/CENTURYIII/locks properties appropriately. Silly me, I though it would be a simple matter to port the working code over to the Comanche PA-24-250 (w/ CIII autopilot). Unfortunately, the structure of the nasal scripts of the PA24 bears very little resemblance to that of the Seneca II. Although the relevant autopilot properties are the same for both planes, the flow of control is not. For example, turning on the autopilot roll axis control with the plane on the ground is harmless in the Seneca, but will cause a nasal crash in the (stock, unmodified) Comanche, and turning the autopilot off again will not recover. (The ailerons will be locked permanently at 0 until you restart.) The routine that crashes is action-sim.nas, a file that doesn't even exist in the Seneca. It contains an update_actions() script that is looped repeatedly, updating positions of control surfaces, etc. With the autopilot on, the script attempts to get the appropriate aileron position from the autopilot, but it returns null and then cause a setValue() error when it blindly tries to set the actual aileron position to that null. The same thing happens if I turn on the autopilot in flight by using the joystick to change the /autopilot/CENTURYIII/controls properties through a script. Is there a general file and scripting structure that it is recommended to follow for implementing aircraft? It's very challenging to learn to understand and modify aircraft implementations when the general arrangement of files is so different from one to the next. How are you turning on the roll axis and how are you turning off the autopilot. I just tried to reproduce your failures and did not have the problems you describe. I am the author of the pa24-250. The model assumes that you are using the switches via the picks. The nasal code replicates the behavior described in the Century III Autopilot Flight System Pilot's Operating Handbook. You used to be able to download a PDF of this from Century. This is no longer the case. There are logical relations between the four switches that are included in the model. If you are changing the locks outside the Nasal models, you will most likely create a state that is not possible via the model code and also not accurate according to the referenced manual. -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Understanding the design of aircraft nasal scripts
The nasal code replicates the behavior described in the Century III Autopilot Flight System Pilot's Operating Handbook. You used to be able to download a PDF of this from Century. This is no longer the case. Try this link http://www.centuryflight.com/manuals/CENTIIB.pdf. -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFC: fgdata merge request 76: Improvedairport Textures
Hi Vivian, On 09 May 2011, at 00:46, Vivian Meazza wrote: I’m afraid that the “improved textures” really aren’t an improvement. Not only do they not work for taxiways, we have also lost the chevrons at the threshold that were quite recently added: https://picasaweb.google.com/gijsrooy/FlightGearSkyopSTextures#5604420979421192098 The grass isn’t much of an improvement either. On balance, this upload is a regression. IMO we should back it out. Thanks for the report. A missing feature would certainly be a good argument to back out this commit (and I have to admit that I had completely missed that). With respect to the aesthetics, I personally didn't see that many differences, so I had to rely on the evaluation from others, which were generally positive in my reading. I will have a look into the chevron / taxiway issue, although it may take a few days before I'm actually taking action. So if others want to comment, please do so. Cheers, Durk-- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Different cockpit layouts for one aircraft- the best way?
On Monday, May 09, 2011 06:53:33 AM Heiko Schulz wrote: Hi, Some aircraft types has different cockpit layouts like having different avionics, autopilot system or glascockpit vs. steam cockpit. Mostly the operator can select what he prefers. Another possible use case is a model of a specific aircraft that has been around a long time in order to make the cockpit correct for various time periods. For example the P-51D is a surviver aircraft now named GunFighter. This aircraft has had various paint schemes over the years but I suspect that the avionics installed and verious other systems have also changed over the years. In fact I know this is the case since I have seen photos of the current cockpit and it is significnatly different from what is was like when it left the factory in 1945 as a typical P-51D-25-NA and I am fairly sure that there are other variations over the years for this aircraft. This applies to the Ec135 helicopter I still work on (an aircraft is never be finished) in real life as well. The operator can choose between the full glascockpit and the one with conventional analog instruments. As I can see this isn't covered yet on FGFS. The PA24-250 uses two -set.xmls to have two different version regarding the autopilot. So it is the only aircraft which allows to have two different panel layouts. For the Ec135 helicopter I would like to create the two available different cockpit layouts. I found out that condition-bindings (condition.../condition) even work for modelpath.../path/model. That would allow me to have just the high- and lowskid version by two set-files linking to the two different fdm to simulate high and lowskids, and let change the cockpit version by tags set up in each livery.xml. Or by an entry in the menu, per key-command etc. I tried it today, loading time for the whole panel together with all instruments is under one second for me which surprised me in a positive way. As FGFS luckily offers many ways to get to a certain point, I wonder if there is maybe a better way or there are some things I did not yet considered. Any thoughts and recommendations out there? Kind regards Heiko still in work: http://www.hoerbird.net/galerie.html But already done: http://www.hoerbird.net/reisen.html --- --- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel -- WhatsUp Gold - Download Free Network Management Software The most intuitive, comprehensive, and cost-effective network management toolset available today. Delivers lowest initial acquisition cost and overall TCO of any competing solution. http://p.sf.net/sfu/whatsupgold-sd___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] A proposal for a Nasal based Honeywell/Boeing-style CDU for FG
Good Day everybody, first of all, let me introduce myself: My name is Claus, I am an aerospace student at GeorgiaTech and recently got into FlightGear in relation to one of my research projects. I have been not so good on reading the FG-devel email list, but have had quite some interactions on the FG IRC chat with other FG enthusiasts. For my research project I need(ed) a somewhat functional Boeing style CDU. So I got into contact with Gijs de Roy and started to learn about his CDU project, then still in this git repo for the 744. I started to make a wiki writeup for Gijs CDU (http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:_Development_of_the_CDU, not up to date anymore) to learn about how Gijs implemented the CDU. As I needed the CDU to be fairly flexible - particularly in respect to [ages outside the currently implementation - I decided to change from a XML approach to a more Nasal based approach. I have finished a first draft of my code and started to write some documentation for it in the FG wiki. I would like to ask for some dev's to check out my code and make any suggestions for improvements. As I have the clearance to release the code under GPL v2, I also would like to offer to merge this into the main FG repository. You can find my code at https://gitorious.org/~hcc23/fg/hcc23s-fgdata/commits/cdu-development The docu is contained in these two wiki pages (and will be expanded) http://wiki.flightgear.org/Nasal_CDU_Framework http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:_Coding_a_Boeing_CDU I am very much looking forward to hearing back from you, particularly with comments and improvement suggestions. Regrads, Claus PS: for those of you active in IRC, my nick there is hcc23 -- Claus Christmann, M.S. Graduate Research Assistant Georgia Institute of Technology 270 Ferst Dr NW Atlanta, GA 30332-0150 http://uav.ae.gatech.edu -- Achieve unprecedented app performance and reliability What every C/C++ and Fortran developer should know. Learn how Intel has extended the reach of its next-generation tools to help boost performance applications - inlcuding clusters. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFC: fgdata merge request 76: Improvedairport Textures
On Sun, 2011-05-08 at 23:46 +0100, Vivian Meazza wrote: I’m afraid that the “improved textures” really aren’t an improvement. Not only do they not work for taxiways, we have also lost the chevrons at the threshold that were quite recently added: Really? I certainly did *not* touch the stopway textures- I just copied the high-resolution stopway textures, scaled them down, and put them into the low-resolution folder. If they were removed, I'm not sure what happened. I didn't do that in my commit. Stopway textures have been around for quite some time, but they were missing from materials.xml. I was the one who made that fix. :) As for them not looking good at all, most people agree that the grass is an improvement. Perhaps you could tell me what, specifically, is wrong with it. Is it too bright? Too bland? Too repetitive? -- Achieve unprecedented app performance and reliability What every C/C++ and Fortran developer should know. Learn how Intel has extended the reach of its next-generation tools to help boost performance applications - inlcuding clusters. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
