Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 01:16, Alex Perry wrote:
From: Boris Koenig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
David Megginson wrote:
I understand
that there are USB devices that you can wear on your head to control
the view in games, and those would probably work in FlightGear, but it
would be hard to survive the ridicule from family, friends, and
neighbours for wearing one.
LOL, that would indeed be very amusing ... must probably look very
similar to the BORG on Star Trek ;-)
There are two different things here.
Normally, for gaming, people want to keep their head stationary
(in linear dimensions) and look in different directions (angular).
What people are talking about here is wanting to keep their
direction of gaze (fixed object) but change their point of view.
The former is easily addressed with a simple magnetic compass module,
to figure out which way you're looking, and a head mount display so
that the screen is always located in the correct direction (in front).
The compass module is usually integrated into the HMD and so not really
a source of looking 'odd', at least compared to the HMD unit itself.
However, the compass module doesn't work when the user wants to be able
to move their head and still look in the same direction. For example,
to lean forward in order to read the tiny little numbers on the altimeter.
For that, you need to track the position of the head, not direction,
so you really want a different kind of sensor to address that need.
You don't need a HMD either, since the instrument panel doesn't move.
There are sensors for this, for example by putting ultrasonic ranging
transducers on your head and on the four corners of the monitor,
but nothing I'd really recommend to you as being a marvellous solution.
Assuming there is a network socket that is providing the 3D position
of the nose (for example) of the user with respect to the monitor,
how hard is it to get FGFS to slew the camera/viewport relationship ?
The properties for the camera/viewport
are: /sim/current-view/{x,y,z}-offset-m. So it should be quite easy.
I've attached a patch to mice.xml that lets you move the camera/viewport with
the middle mouse button pressed in mouse view mode. Useful for looking at the
compass head on.
--
Roy Vegard Ovesen
Index: mice.xml
===
RCS file: /var/cvs/FlightGear-0.9/data/mice.xml,v
retrieving revision 1.16
diff -p -u -r1.16 mice.xml
--- mice.xml 24 Jun 2004 14:45:48 - 1.16
+++ mice.xml 23 Nov 2004 12:33:33 -
@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ current mode for each mouse is held in t
!-- Mouse left/right motion --
x-axis
-!-- No buttons pressed: move the view position left or right --
+!-- No buttons pressed: rotate the view left or right --
binding
condition
and
@@ -228,6 +228,25 @@ current mode for each mouse is held in t
wrap type=booltrue/wrap
/binding
+
+!-- Middle button pressed: move the view position left or right --
+binding
+ condition
+ and
+ not
+property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property
+ /not
+ property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property
+ /and
+ /condition
+ commandproperty-adjust/command
+ property/sim/current-view/x-offset-m/property
+ factor type=double1/factor
+ min type=double-0.5/min
+ max type=double0.5/max
+ wrap type=boolfalse/wrap
+/binding
+
/x-axis
!-- Mouse up/down motion --
@@ -252,6 +271,25 @@ current mode for each mouse is held in t
max type=double90/max
wrap type=boolfalse/wrap
/binding
+
+!-- Middle button pressed: move the view up and down --
+binding
+ condition
+ and
+ not
+property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property
+ /not
+property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property
+ /and
+ /condition
+ commandproperty-adjust/command
+ property/sim/current-view/y-offset-m/property
+ factor type=double-1/factor
+ min type=double-0.5/min
+ max type=double0.5/max
+ wrap type=boolfalse/wrap
+/binding
+
/y-axis
/mode
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[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
* Roy Vegard Ovesen -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 13:41: I've attached a patch to mice.xml that lets you move the camera/viewport with the middle mouse button pressed in mouse view mode. Useful for looking at the compass head on. Very cool. There are two problems, though: I can move my 'head' down very far (below the bo105's floor), but I can hardly move it up. And the possibility to restore the original position on middle mouse click is lost. (I tend to keep that patch applied anyway. :-) m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 14:18, Melchior FRANZ wrote: * Roy Vegard Ovesen -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 13:41: I've attached a patch to mice.xml that lets you move the camera/viewport with the middle mouse button pressed in mouse view mode. Useful for looking at the compass head on. Very cool. There are two problems, though: I can move my 'head' down very far (below the bo105's floor), but I can hardly move it up. And the possibility to restore the original position on middle mouse click is lost. (I tend to keep that patch applied anyway. :-) I only tested it in the default cessna where max and min limits of 0.5 meters from the origin seemed reasonable, you can imagine what happened when I tried the A320 where the initial y-offset is way above 0.5 meters :-(. Perhaps the movement limits should be aircraft specific, any volunteers ;-) Restoring the original position with the _middle_ button? I'm only familiar with restoring the orientation with the _left_ button. I guess that it would be possible to also restore the position with the left button, but I think that restoring the orientation only is actually quite usefull. I've also noticed that the position sometimes jumps to it's min or max position, this seem to happen when the cursor wraps from from one edge of the screen to the opposite. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
* Roy Vegard Ovesen -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 15:51: I only tested it in the default cessna where max and min limits of 0.5 meters from the origin seemed reasonable, you can imagine what happened when I tried the A320 where the initial y-offset is way above 0.5 meters :-(. Perhaps the movement limits should be aircraft specific, any volunteers ;-) volunt.. WHAT?!? ... Having this settable per aircraft would be nice. Restoring the original position with the _middle_ button? I'm only familiar with restoring the orientation with the _left_ button. Whoops, OK. (As an excuse: I do normally reset the view direction with my js -- even have two separate functions there. Was so excited about the new mouse functionality, that I got this wrong. Sorry. Cancel the second complaint, then. :-) m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
* Roy Vegard Ovesen -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 15:51: I only tested it in the default cessna where max and min limits of 0.5 meters from the origin seemed reasonable, Should have tried the FA-18A. Completely unusable there. You immediately end up between the pilot's legs and there's no way to get back up. But can go further down and watch the scenery through the open front wheel bay. Resetting fgfs doesn't help either. But once fixed this feature will be very useful. m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 16:30, Melchior FRANZ wrote: Should have tried the FA-18A. Completely unusable there. You immediately end up between the pilot's legs and there's no way to get back up. But can go further down and watch the scenery through the open front wheel bay. Resetting fgfs doesn't help either. But once fixed this feature will be very useful. Yes, that's what happened in the Airbus too, and it should also happen to any large aircraft. You can easily fix this by making the min and max values in mice.xml greater. I set them to -10 and 10 meters respectively for both x and y axes, I guess that should be enough for most aircraft. Setting these limits to reasonable values (inside the cockpit) for every aircraft would be, as you can imagine, quite a labourous job. Maybe someone over on the users list would be willing to have a go at it? Every so often I see users that ask how to contribute. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
RE: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
Melchior FRANZ writes: * Melchior FRANZ -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 17:14: I'm volunteering already No, I take that back. Mouse properties are (like kbd * js bindings) fixed at the beginning. min/max can't easily be changed afterwards, and I don't feel like re-writing the whole input module. Better set the default to +/- 5m. Can't you just load the properties that you want and then call reinit() on the whole FGInput subsytem Norman ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
* Norman Vine -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 18:19:
* * Melchior FRANZ writes:
Mouse properties are (like kbd * js bindings)
fixed at the beginning. min/max can't easily be changed afterwards,
and I don't feel like re-writing the whole input module. Better set
the default to +/- 5m.
Can't you just load the properties that you want
and then call reinit() on the whole FGInput subsytem
What I had: {x,y}-offset-{min,max}-m settings for each view
(only really defined for cockpit view, but settable for the
others as well). Aircraft specific settings in the bo105 config,
and changes to src/Main/viewmgr.cxx that would copy the correct
settings to /view/current-view. mice.xml used property aliases
that pointed there. It all worked, except that the mouse didn't
care for the changed properties.
re-init-ing js/kbd/mice with every view change should have worked,
but isn't that a bit too expensive? And even if only the mouse
parts were re-init-ed, this sounds like a work-around, rather than
a solution.
m.
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 18:05, Melchior FRANZ wrote: No, I take that back. Mouse properties are (like kbd * js bindings) fixed at the beginning. min/max can't easily be changed afterwards, and I don't feel like re-writing the whole input module. Better set the default to +/- 5m. You can include only the required axis bindings in your aircraft *-set.xml file, like this (for the default cessna): input mice mouse n=0 !-- Mode 2: view mode -- mode n=2 !-- Mouse left/right motion -- x-axis !-- No buttons pressed: rotate the view left or right -- binding condition and not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property /not not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property /not /and /condition commandproperty-adjust/command property/sim/current-view/heading-offset-deg/property factor type=double-360/factor min type=double0/min max type=double360/max wrap type=booltrue/wrap /binding !-- Middle button pressed: move the view position left or right -- binding condition and not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property /not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property /and /condition commandproperty-adjust/command property/sim/current-view/x-offset-m/property factor type=double0.75/factor min type=double-0.5/min max type=double0.5/max wrap type=boolfalse/wrap /binding /x-axis !-- Mouse up/down motion -- y-axis !-- No buttons pressed: tilt the view up and down -- binding condition and not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property /not not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property /not /and /condition commandproperty-adjust/command property/sim/current-view/pitch-offset-deg/property factor type=double-180/factor min type=double-90/min max type=double90/max wrap type=boolfalse/wrap /binding !-- Middle button pressed: move the view up and down -- binding condition and not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[0]/property /not property/devices/status/mice/mouse[0]/button[1]/property /and /condition commandproperty-adjust/command property/sim/current-view/y-offset-m/property factor type=double-0.75/factor min type=double-0.4/min max type=double0.4/max wrap type=boolfalse/wrap /binding /y-axis /mode /mouse /mice /input This will override the settings in mice.xml, but it will only override the settings that are defined here, so all the existing modes in mice.xml are used. As I said earlier it will be a lot of work to do this to every aircraft model. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: On Tuesday 23 November 2004 18:05, Melchior FRANZ wrote: No, I take that back. Mouse properties are (like kbd * js bindings) fixed at the beginning. min/max can't easily be changed afterwards, and I don't feel like re-writing the whole input module. Better set the default to +/- 5m. You can include only the required axis bindings in your aircraft *-set.xml file, like this (for the default cessna): [...] This will override the settings in mice.xml, but it will only override the settings that are defined here, so all the existing modes in mice.xml are used. As I said earlier it will be a lot of work to do this to every aircraft model. Please correct me if I am wrong: - There are only two parameters that are a/c specifc: min/max ? - The tags for custom bindings remain basically identical ? If the above is true to some extent, my suggestion for a temporary workaround would be to use an external file that takes care of the bindings, but uses parameters taken from the property tree instead of fixed values: I have done something very similar when I needed to add support for dynamic layer positioning (to be able to use nasal code to re-position layers based on certain actions), by using a property child instead of a fixed value within the x/ or y/ tags. So, one could think about using one general bindings file that's included by the *-set.xml files - that way each aircraft could put its min/max values directly into the right location within the property tree. What do you think, am I still missing the point ? :-) - Boris ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 00:16, Alex Perry wrote: From: Boris Koenig [EMAIL PROTECTED] David Megginson wrote: I understand that there are USB devices that you can wear on your head to control the view in games, and those would probably work in FlightGear, but it would be hard to survive the ridicule from family, friends, and neighbours for wearing one. LOL, that would indeed be very amusing ... must probably look very similar to the BORG on Star Trek ;-) There are two different things here. Normally, for gaming, people want to keep their head stationary (in linear dimensions) and look in different directions (angular). What people are talking about here is wanting to keep their direction of gaze (fixed object) but change their point of view. The former is easily addressed with a simple magnetic compass module, to figure out which way you're looking, and a head mount display so that the screen is always located in the correct direction (in front). The compass module is usually integrated into the HMD and so not really a source of looking 'odd', at least compared to the HMD unit itself. However, the compass module doesn't work when the user wants to be able to move their head and still look in the same direction. For example, to lean forward in order to read the tiny little numbers on the altimeter. For that, you need to track the position of the head, not direction, so you really want a different kind of sensor to address that need. You don't need a HMD either, since the instrument panel doesn't move. There are sensors for this, for example by putting ultrasonic ranging transducers on your head and on the four corners of the monitor, but nothing I'd really recommend to you as being a marvellous solution. Assuming there is a network socket that is providing the 3D position of the nose (for example) of the user with respect to the monitor, how hard is it to get FGFS to slew the camera/viewport relationship ? I've got stuff lying around at work here that is fairly cheap and can be made to do the sensing job, so it'd be interesting to try it out ... I had a bit of a go at something along the lines of moving the viewpoint in the Comper Swift. The design of the a/c meant that the wing was directly in front of the eyes (in early models of the Swift the altimeter and airspeed indicator were set into the cut-out in the trailing edge of the wing around the cockpit) so it was necessary for the pilot to lean out to either side to get a view directly ahead. As the Swift didn't have flaps I re-mapped the key bindings to move the cockpit view sideways - when I get around to updating it I'll use Nasal to handle it. Anyway, when I also get around to making the 3d instruments for the cockpit, the viewpoint change should work with the 3d instruments, one of which, iirc, was a horizontally mounted mag compass that cantilevered out from the panel. LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
On Tuesday 23 November 2004 19:55, Melchior FRANZ wrote: Sure, but that's yet another ugly hack. I'd prefer a *solution*. I don't use a standard mice.xml, and I would really hate if every aircraft designer messes with mouse settings and overwrites my stuff. What's next? Aircrafts overwriting my carefully chosen joystick settings? No wait, that's already done in (the otherwise beautifully) b1900d ... I really thought that overriding defaults from preferences.xml was a good solution. *-set.xml is used to override all kinds of other stuff, including keyboard and joystick settings, so why not override mouse settings too!? -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
* Roy Vegard Ovesen -- Tuesday 23 November 2004 20:39: I really thought that overriding defaults from preferences.xml was a good solution. *-set.xml is used to override all kinds of other stuff, including keyboard and joystick settings, so why not override mouse settings too!? Aircrafts aren't supposed to override all sorts of setting -- only theirs! For example, even if preferences.xml says that the flaps shall not be lowered by default, the aircraft may *of course* override that. (Who owns the flaps?) There are other groups of properties that are not owned by the aircraft. I would not accept that an aircraft config file changes the weather or the daytime. That's world stuff. Nor would I accept if one changed sim stuff (e.g. the rendering method) or hardware stuff (mouse/joystick). One aircraft, for example, tried to disable the atc and ai-model subsystems. No need to mention that this was thrown out. As a workaround I'd rather set min/max to 2 or 3m for all aircrafts. And the ideal solution would be to let the input system really *use* properties, not just to read them once at startup and never look at them again. :-) m. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
[Flightgear-devel] Re: Magnetic Compass
From: Boris Koenig [EMAIL PROTECTED] David Megginson wrote: I understand that there are USB devices that you can wear on your head to control the view in games, and those would probably work in FlightGear, but it would be hard to survive the ridicule from family, friends, and neighbours for wearing one. LOL, that would indeed be very amusing ... must probably look very similar to the BORG on Star Trek ;-) There are two different things here. Normally, for gaming, people want to keep their head stationary (in linear dimensions) and look in different directions (angular). What people are talking about here is wanting to keep their direction of gaze (fixed object) but change their point of view. The former is easily addressed with a simple magnetic compass module, to figure out which way you're looking, and a head mount display so that the screen is always located in the correct direction (in front). The compass module is usually integrated into the HMD and so not really a source of looking 'odd', at least compared to the HMD unit itself. However, the compass module doesn't work when the user wants to be able to move their head and still look in the same direction. For example, to lean forward in order to read the tiny little numbers on the altimeter. For that, you need to track the position of the head, not direction, so you really want a different kind of sensor to address that need. You don't need a HMD either, since the instrument panel doesn't move. There are sensors for this, for example by putting ultrasonic ranging transducers on your head and on the four corners of the monitor, but nothing I'd really recommend to you as being a marvellous solution. Assuming there is a network socket that is providing the 3D position of the nose (for example) of the user with respect to the monitor, how hard is it to get FGFS to slew the camera/viewport relationship ? I've got stuff lying around at work here that is fairly cheap and can be made to do the sensing job, so it'd be interesting to try it out ... ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
