* New features
- More realistic descent paths
- Separation during descent and approach
- ATC approach controller (still silent)
- inbound traffic flow will start immediately
* Bug fixes
- Properly handle vertical speed when on ground
- Departing aircraft now wait for taxiclerance before moving
- Traffic manager waits for proper weather initialization
- Fixed instabilities in the preferential runway usage code
- Fine tuning of waypoint following code.
A small patch to allow the user to ignore specific
MP aircraft on a per-MP instance basis by setting
"controls/invisible". This
property name was chosen for consistency with the existing property
for AIBallistic objects.
issue is numerical problems in _wgs84_inverse, triggered by the traffic-manager
testing enormous distances geodetically.
Changes
- refactor AISchedule::update, so the aircraft approximate position
calculation is simpler.
- refactor AIAircraft to no longer use exceptions as a return value mechanism
- change AISchedule::update to use cartesian math for in-visible-range check
Improvements to the cloudsystem:
- A new xml format
- Texture indexing based on the position of the sprite in the cloud
mass, allowing more control over the texture set.
- Improved fog and shading
- Better sprite distribution
- A more natural distribution of clouds, so no more obvious grids.
This is now included in the model xml file.
So, wires and catapults also work even if they are not loaded by an AICarrier.
Modified Files:
AICarrier.cxx AICarrier.hxx
The current code still has some rough edges, in particular memory still
needs to be deallocated where possible, and the actual use of the code
needs more testing. This code has been running without noticable problems,
so I think it's ready for some wider exposure. Detailed changes include:
- Finetuning of the SID/STAR data concept.
- Preloading of all SIDs, from one xml file.
- ATC determines which SID should be used and echoes this over the com1 or
com2 radio.
experimental: Only one SID per runway is supported, and the waypoints are
read from file at every request, which is not very efficient. The current
code is only executed when FlightGear is configured to use airport dynamics
data from the scenery repository, instead of the base package. Since the
latter is still the default, I believe that this will provide enough safe-
guarding to commit SID/STAR support in small, incremental steps.
Next step will be buffering and support for multiple departure routes per
runway.
* Changed the runway XX. ATC message to actually report the real
designated departure runway
* In case of multiple active runways, select the one with a heading that is
closest to the direction of the ultimate departure destination / lines up
with the arrival path.
* Some support for geometry information provided by the custom scenery
project. Current support is for AI groundnets and runway use files only
since this is a switch that involves a lot of data verification and
updating, during the transistion the actual path where the data can be
read from is user configurable. setting the property
/sim/traffic-manager/use-custom-scenery-data to true
will cause flightgear to read the ground networks from the scenery
directory (--{fg-scenery}/Airports/[I]/[C]/[A]/[ICAO].groundnet.xml to be
precise). Setting this property to false will retain the original
behvior.
* For departing aircraft, runway takeoff calculations will be done on the
basis of the performance database. For testing purposes, a performance
estimate for a heavy jet has been added.
notion of a 'displacedThreshold'. Now there's just a real threshold,
displaced or otherwise, and people who care about the paved area can use
'begin' and 'end'. Thanks to John Denker for pointing out the confusion this
leads to. Using 'end' also gets rid of the 'reverseThreshold' name, which was
clearly a bad choice of mine.
This patch changes terrasync so it links against the subversion
library if you have it installed. It supports people who build binary
releases for use by non-developers by removing the runtime external
dependency on having command line svn or rsync available. Since the
patch changes autoconf to detect libsvn, I'd appreciate it if people
who release binaries could verify that the detection scripting works
for their platform.
Developer warning: If you do have libsvn developer libraries
installed, terrasync changes its default option from "-R" to "-S" to
remove the command line dependency. However, Martin has not yet
uploaded world scenery into the subversion repository so it won't be
useful to fly against and you may want to specify "-R" on the command
line in the short term. Or run both.
Me: Update MSVC 7.1 project file. Need svn-win32-1.x.y_dev.zip and svn-win32-1.x.y.zip
located at http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=8100
Convert FGRunway to be heap-based, and inherit FGPositioned. This is a large, ugly change, since FGRunway was essentially a plain struct, with no accessors or abstraction. This change adds various helpers and accessors to FGRunway, but doesn't change many places to use them - that will be a follow up series of patches. It's still a large patch, but outside of FGAirport and FGRunway, mostly mechanical search-and-replace.
An interesting part of this change is that reciprocal runways now exist as independent objects, rather than being created on the fly by the search methods. This simplifies some pieces of code that search for and iterate runways. For users who only want one 'end' of a runway, the new 'isReciprocal' predicate allows them to ignore the 'other' end. Current the only user of this is the 'ground-radar' ATC feature. If we had data on which runways are truly 'single-ended', it would now be trivial to use this in the airport loader to *not* create the reciprocal.
- removes various members from FGRunway which no-one was using
- any of these can be trivially re-instated if and when someone
actually wants to use them - but right now they're simply bloating up
FGRunway, which we have lots of, because it currently includes all the
taxiways in Robin's data.
- that's it.
- Runways are now part of an airport, instead of a separate list
- Runways are no longer represented as a boring struct, but as a class
of their own.
-Improved runway access to unify various runway access methods.
- this exposed a bizarre issue on Mac where dragging in <AGL/agl.h> in
extensions.hxx was pulling in all of Carbon to the global namespace
- very scary. As a result, I now need to explicitly include CoreFoundation
in fg_init.cxx.
- change SG_USING_STD(x) to using std::x
SimGear change. It changes all the SG_xxxx to be the 'real' includes, and gets
rid of many #ifdef SG_HAVE_STD_INCLUDES. As an added bonus, rather than
replacing 'SG_USING_NAMESPACE(std)' with 'using namespace std', I just fixed
the small number of places to use std:: explicitly. So we're no longer polluting
the global namespace with the entire contents of std, in many cases.
There is one more 'mechanical' change to come - getting rid of SG_USING_STD(X),
but I want to keep that separate from everything else. (There's another
mechnical change, replacing <math.h> with <cmath> and so on *everywhere*, but
one step at a time)
PLETE_FUNCTIONAL from SimGear and FlightGear.
As a result, SG_HAVE_STD_INCLUDES is now *always* set, so I will get the boring
fixes for that done, but separately. I'm still auditing the other things in comp
ilers.h - there's a lot that can die now BORLAND is gone.
Various other patches that have been lingering around for a while:
* Moved trafficcontrol.[ch]xx from the Airports directory to ATC, where
it really belongs.
* AI aircraft will request startup clearance, and ground control will
approve.
* Starting AI Aircraft will be pushed back to a predefined holding point
on the ground network, and wait a while before taxiing out to the runway
and the pushback code:
- Traffic manager starts modelload requests immediately upon program
loading
- Only create legs 1 (push back) or five (cruise) of AI traffic.
- AIAircraft's rather obsessive behavior to circle around a waypoint is
largely resolved
- More realistic ground steering for AI aircraft.
From Till:
i started the project at the end of february with a simple idea: move all
3d-model loading to the DatabasePager-thread. my first attempts looked
promising, though they were a little too optimistic (or naive?). the patch
has evolved a lot since.
currently it does the following things:
1. revive SGModelLib, move functions for xml-model-loading there
2. replace all calls to sgLoad3dModel with calls to either
SGModelLib::loadModel() or SGModelLib::loadPagedModel()
almost all models will be loaded by the DatabasePager. the few exceptions are:
your own plane, shared models in scenery, random objects, AIBallistic models.
3. simplify mode-loading functions (avoid passing around fg_root)
4. avoid supurious MatrixTransform nodes in loaded models
5. fix some memory leaks
and "isOnRunway".
- Added initial support for AI controlled pushback operations, making use of the
current editing capabilities of TaxiDraw CVS / New_GUI_CODE. The current
implementation is slightly more computationally intensive than strictly
required, due to the currently inability of taxidraw to link one specific
pushBack point to to a particular startup location. FlightGear now determines
this dynamically, and once we have that functionality in TaxiDraw, the
initialization part of createPushBack() can be further simplified.
- Smoother transition from pushback to taxi. No more skipping of waypoints, and
aircraft wait for two minutes at pushback point.
- The classes FGTaxiNode, FGTaxiSegment, and FGParking, now have copy
constructors, and assignment operators.
- Removed declaration of undefined constructor FGTaxiNode(double, double, int)
- Array boundry checks and cleanup.
- Modified Dijkstra path search algoritm to solve partial problems. Currently
limited to include pushback points and routes only, but can probably be
extended to a more general approach.
- Added initial support for giving certain routes in the network a penalty, in
order to discourage the use of certain routes over others.
- Airports Directory
Thomas Foerster: Pulls out the FGTaxiNode implementation into gnnode.cxx.
Melchior / Durk: Copy Constructor and assignment operator for FGTaxiRoute
- AIModels Directory
Durk / Melchior / Czaba Halasz: Ensure that all derived classes use AIBase
member 'callsign'. Adapted, moved and deleted getter/setter functions where
necessary
Czaba Halasz: Fix AIBase model path vs. submodel path consistency.
- Traffic Directory and AIModels CreateFlightPlanCruise
DT: Temporary revert parts of the position estimation code.
(reported by Csaba Halaszi /helijah)
2) Decrease AI aircraft Heading error tolerance to 1% of its
original value. This is necessary to mitigate spinning and
makes for actual "on-runway" landings.
src/AIModel/AIFlightPlan.hxx
src/AIModel/AIFlightPlanCreateCruise.cxx
src/AIModel/AITanker.cxx src/Traffic/Schedule.cxx:
Move member variables that should better be in function local
scope into the functions. Make more use of SGMath functions.
data for AI traffic. Default performance classes are still available as a
backup. This database will allow the calculation of aircraft-specific
take-off speed and estimate runway lenght requirements. Further added
rudimentary support for take-off and landing rotation of AIAircraft.
- re-enable od_gauge ("owner drawn" render-to-texture instruments)
- implement radar in c++ (unlimited number of clouds/ai/mp/... objects,
better performance)
- if no <impact-reports> node is defined for a particular submodel, then
write the path to /ai/models/model-impact instead
- don't tie() properties that are only ever set a single time, if at all!
- better variable names
a report node in the submodels config:
<impact-reports>/sim/model/cow/impact</impact-reports>
When an impact happens, then the path of the submodel will be written to
this node. An attached listener function can evaluate the impact properties.
- fix breakage due to former commit (AIManager.cxx, r1.72)
- make AI properties available in AIBase
- add <valid> property for animations/nasal scripts
- support more MP and AI targets
- add target select and altitude display
their XML wrapper/animation file. They can access their /ai/models node
via cmdarg() function. Example:
<nasal>
<load>
print("Hi, I'm the Nimitz. My data are under ",
cmdarg().getPath());
</load>
<unload>
...
</unload>
</nasal>
Note, however, that the <unload> block is only called on exit at the moment,
not when the tile is unloaded.
"""
"Flight plans" which can start at a given time (gmt)
WAITUNTIL tokens which pause the flight plans until a given time (gmt)
Submodels can now be attached to any AI objects (except submodels - it can
be done, but in my experimental code it's too expensive in frame rate atm)
"No-roll" attribute added to Ballistic objects - useful for wakes and the
like
"Random" attribute added to Ballistic objects (adds =- 5% to the Cd) -
useful for smoke, exhausts
If the <trigger> tag is not specified the Ballistic object/s will be
released at start-up (cannot be stopped)
Submodels are not released from AI Objects if the AI Object is more than 15
miles away.
"""
mf: minor code and formatting fixes; submodels.?xx were FUBAR and are thus
astyle formatted;
NOTE that <name> tags END, EOF, WAIT, WAITUNTIL are *depreciated*.
Don't get too used to them. This will have to be moved from the "name"
to regular engries.
"Implement 'flightplans' for AIShips. This patch also introduces the concept
of a 'WAIT' token for AIShips: when the flightplan reaches a 'WAIT', the
AIShip stops and pauses for the specified time (secs)."
Here is a patch for two bugs in the AI/multiplayer part:
1. Cannot find model file *.ac error message (was only a false message,
anything worked correctly, the model was loaded from the correct path
afterwards).
2. Often many multiplayer aircrafts are missing in the property-tree.
(but I need them for aerotowing). There is still another bug: The
property in some circumstances seems not to be cleaned up after logout
of a multiplayer. I have added a workaround for this, but I don't now,
if it 100% works (should have no side effects, just aerotow would not
work sometimes). For testing I need more traffic on the mp-server.
- Ground network slow-down finally works as expected
(although occasionally causing a traffic jam)
- Hold position instruction now really sets speed to zero, in addition
it actually works now for crossing and two-way traffic
- Attempt to limit execution time of ground network trace algorithm
to make performance acceptable at high-density networks
- Removed remaining terminal messages
- Various minor tweaks and clean-ups
- Moved AIModels/Traffic Manager related AI functions to a new file
- Rewrote the traffic manager so that the containers use pointers to
objects instead of the objects themselves, which will allow for a
more flexible memory management.
- Rewrote parts of the airport groundnetwork code, also because the
stl containers now contain object pointers instead of the objects
themselves.
- Fixed an uninitialized iterator in the AI distance tracking code
- Fixed flawed logic in some of the traffic controller's while loops
- Added a tower controller, which paces take-off behavior of AITraffic
in a more realistic way.
- Various other minor fixes and fine tuning.
maintain a resonable distance from each other while taxiing on the same
route. The current code does not yet take crossing routes or aircraft
taxiing into opposite directions into account.
work for ground based distance separation of AIAircraft.
Traffic manager initialization related changes:
- Schedules initialize "on the fly", instead of during initialization
- Invalid routes are no longer deleted, but marked as BOGUS and ignored
- Changed loading order from a distance based prioritization to a point-
score based prioritization, resulting in a much faster establisment of
AIAircraft near the user's plane.
Preparatory work for ground-based separation of Aircraft.
- The groundnetwork findShrortestRoute function not only returns a list
of waypoints, but also a list of taxi "segments" (a.k.a. taxiways).
- The taxiway list is stored in the Flightplan, and updated everytime
a new taxi leg is created.
using Curt's new speed adjustment code. 2) Separated the function
FlightPlanCreateCruise() into a new source file in preparation of a more
elaborate airway following scheme.
and tgt_altitude -> tgt_altitude_ft. Also fix a comment in AIBase.hxx
indicating that the altitude is in meters, even though the usage throughout the
code was most definitely feet.
- In AIMultiplayer.cxx, update the altitude_ft variable so that the altitude
is reported correctly in the entity's property subtree.
- In AIMultiplayer.cxx, compute a velocity value in kts to fill in the speed
entry in the entity's property subtree. Note, this is not an earth centered
reference speed, not an indicated speed and not a speed relative to the local
airmass (that would be much harder to do.)
AI aircraft are out of range or the piloted aircraft has no radar system.
These computation include range, bearing, and angular offset relative to the
piloted aircraft. This gives some external script the control the behavior
of the AI aircraft relative to the piloted aircraft without requiring a radar
system, and without requiring the AI aircraft to be within radar range.
flightplan. Such aircraft are given some initial conditions that they
fly with. They proceed on in "freeflight" mode indefinitely. For example,
there is a refueling demo where the tanker starts at 3000', 280 kts, and
in a 15 degree bank, and then continues to orbit indefinitely.
For these aircraft with no flightplan, I have added several control nodes in
controls/flight that allow a script or menu or external application to set
heading, altitude, bank angle, and speed. This permits some level of interactive
or scripted control over AI aircraft.
src/AIModel/AIAircraft.cxx src/ATC/AILocalTraffic.cxx
src/FDM/flight.cxx src/FDM/flight.hxx src/FDM/groundcache.cxx
src/FDM/groundcache.hxx src/Main/fg_init.cxx src/Main/main.cxx
src/Scenery/hitlist.cxx src/Scenery/hitlist.hxx
src/Scenery/scenery.cxx src/Scenery/scenery.hxx
Make use of the attached SGMaterial reference userdata on scenegraph
leafs. Make the SGMaterial pointer available to the ground query
routines.
SGPropertyNode to guarded ones. This is also done for JSBSim/JSBSim.hxx,
for which JSB had given explicit permission a while ago. I postponed that
back then, but now is the time.
"Bug Fix - amend the code so that JSBSIm can have more than one tanker in
the environment at the same time. A nasal script has to be added to each
aar-capable JSBSim model to complete this fix."
"Add Air to Air TACAN and User-User refuelling over the Multiplayer Network.
With this change, your TACAN instrument can be tuned to the channel of a
Multiplayer ac. It also activates fuel flow between User and User aircraft
when they are less than 50 ft apart. To participate in multiplayer as a
tanker, all you require to do is to use the callsign MOBIL* (where * is some
number) on the net. Only MOBIL1, MOBIL2 and MOBIL3 have been assigned TACAN
channels, but any MOBIL callsign will be able to give fuel."
"Preparations for an upgrade to Air-to-Air Refuelling to allow more than one
tanker in the environment at a time. This will only work with YASim models.
JSBSim models are unaffected by this change."
I've got some updates for the soaring scenario that will make for a more
realistic (and fun) experience. They are:
1) A cap cloud, which will sit atop each thermal
2) A thermal scenario with wide coverage around KSFO, and using cap clouds
3) A one-line change to AIThermal.cxx to position cap cloud properly
4) Schweizer 2-33 set file change to match cloud coverage with thermal
heights.
files:
1) data/Models/Geometry/thermalcap.ac
2) data/Models/Geometry/thermalcap.xml
3) data/Models/Geometry/thermal_cap.rgb
4) data/AI/thermal_demo.xml
5) data/Aircraft/sgs233/sgs233-set.xml
6) source/src/AIModel/AIThermal.cxx
*** or, if you prefer diffs ***
7) aimodel.diff
"Add Air to Air TACAN. With this facility TACAN equipped aircraft can
measure the range and bearing of TACAN equipped AI Aircraft. ATM there is
only one assigned - callsign ESSO1 on TACAN channel 039X, but this can be
easily expanded to include other c/s channel # pairs - just ask me if you
want more."
When AIFlightPlanCreateTaxi() function is called with the firstFlight
argument set to true, this is supposed to handle situations where the
the aircraft's timetable indicates it should have left between about 5 to
20 minutes earlier. In the previous version, all these aircraft started
taxiing from the first parking location available in the network, due
to the fact that the variable gateId was not assigned a value. In this
patch, route tracing starts from an assigned gate and the network node
following code is fast forwarded to a random location along the taxiways
to give a more realistic and natural distribution of taxiing aircraft
after startup.
This patch further addresses some weird ballet-dancing behavior that
aircraft were showing just prior to/right after parking and which was
related to a number of more or less duplicate waypoints in the transition
from createTaxi() to createParking() to createPushBack() to createTaxi().
Finally, a blatant typing error in the getParking() function was fixed.
at (lon, lat) coordinates -1000,0. This patch fixes the AIModels/Traffic
Manager side of things. The AIModels subsystems allowed the creation of
AIAircraft with non-existent 3D models. If such a model didn't exist, the
aip class didn't get initialized, resulting in the above-mentioned bogus
position information. Here I circumvent this problem by a) only interacting
with the tile loader if the model is visible (and hence has succesfully been
initialized) and b) by disallowing the traffic manager to create AIAircraft
objects if the path to the 3D model doesn't exist.
aircraft models this is only called if they are loaded as AI, not if they
are the model flown by the human pilot. This has technical reasons (too
soon for Nasal/fg), but is useful to distinguish AI and non-AI use, for
example to set a different livery for AI models, or to set different
animation properties.
This patch makes use of the vectors now available in simgear with that past
patch. And using that it simplyfies the carrier code somehow.
- Small additional factory's to the quaternion code are done in the simgear
part. Also more explicit unit names in the factory functions.
- The flightgear part makes use of them and simplyfies some computations
especially in the carrier code.
- The data part fixes the coordinate frames I used for the park positions in
the carrier to match the usual ones. I believed that I had done so, but it
was definitly different. Also there are more parking positions avaliable now.
The new multiplayer patch with an extension to transmit some properties with
the base package. The properties are transmitted in a way that will not
immediately brake the packet format if we need new ones.
Even if the maxmimum number needs to be limited somehow, that format might
work well until we have an improoved packet format which is even more compact
and that does not require to retransmit redundant information with each
packet.
That part is relatively fresh and based on that what Oliver provides on his
multiplayer server web page.
The properties are transferred to the client and I have modified the seahawks
rudder animation property to use a relative property path to verify that it
works appart from the fact that you can see it changing in the property
browser.
The movement is still a bit jerky, but that can be fixed/tuned later without
again braking the packet format.
This patch removes some useless indirection when creating AIModels. It
obsolets AIScenario*.
AIEntities are just an intermediate copy of an other intermediate copy of an
xml file on the way from the ai scenario configuration file to the AIModels.
As such the AImodels can now be created directly from the property tree read
from the scenario file.
This reduces the amount of work needed to add an other AIModel and reduces the
amount of copy operations done during initialization.
It also moves internal knowledge of special AI models into these special AI
models class instead of spreading that into the whole AIModel subdirectory
which in turn enables to use carrier internal data structures for carrier
internal data ...
Also some unused variables are removed from the AIModel classes.
I believe that there are still more of them, but that is what I stumbled
accross ...
Tested, like the other splitouts these days in a seperate tree and using the
autopilot for some time, and in this case with a carrier start ...
This patch is a combined effort by Gregor Richards, Oliver Schroeder, and
Vivian Meazza (and code cleanups and improvements by Erik Hofman). It corrects
the bug in which a Multiplayer model responds to local inputs, and the view
number bug which caused certain aircraft to appear as cockpit only models. It
passes remote properties over the net, and all major control surfaces and gear
are now animated correctly, providing that the local ~model.xml file contains
no leading "/" in the <property></property> data entries. MP objects
are now extrapolated using 1st and 2nd derivatives to make their movement
appear more smooth. The sim is now halted while a new client joins the net.
Known problems with MP are non-display of the remote client under certain
circumstances of starting/resetting, and a freeze on starting. These bugs are
long standing, and are not addressed by this patch.
Special thanks must go to AJ Macleod for his patient testing of this patch over many evenings.
We have also moved part of multiplayer into AIModels as part of the ongoing
development of MP.
- Feet to meter conversion mistake (in AI getGround elev)
- Improved ground following code (not yet perfect, but for now no one will
notice it within the marginal altitiude differences at the taxitrack or
runway)
- Exclusion of the "AI" directory witihin data/Aircraft in
main/init/fgSearchAircraft, to prevent AI aircraft to be picked up by the
aircraft search function
- fix indentation (there were 2, 3, 4, 7(!) space indents as well as tab
indents, all mixed together)
- no code changes, except one "if (foo) {}" changed to "if (!foo) return; ..."
Here's a fix for a bug I introduced when I updated the AIStorm with
turbulence. The change I made to the FGAIEntity struct was overriding the
thermal <strength-fps> data.
"the model is deref'd and deleted when the refcount is null *but* it is
still referenced in the ai model list, so next time you ask for it you will
have a reference on something deleted"
I tried to make sure accessor functions which return by reference act
on const objects. also replaced some iterators with const_iterator
and a few return/pass by reference that were missed the first time
around.
* Use "const string&" rather than "string" in function calls when appropriate.
* Use "const Point3D&" instead of "Pint3D" in function calls when appropriate.
* Improved course calculation in calc_gc_course_dist()
* Safer thread handling code.
Vassilii Khachaturov:
Dont use "const Point3D&" for return types unless you're absolutely sure.
Erik Hofman:
* Use SGD_(2)PI(_[24]) as defined in simgear/constants.h rather than
calculating it by hand every time.
Auf Niederlandisch:
Bij deze de patch voor de taxiway code. Deze code is nog gebaseerd
op de bestaaande architectuur, gebaseerd op de FGAirport class in simple.[ch]xx
Ik heb me voornamelijk gericht op nieuwe functionaliteit; de volgende
submissie zal waarschijnlijk bestaan uit opschoning, opsplitsing en een
implementatie van de nieuwe airport architectuur, zoals voorgesteld door
David Luff.
En Anglais:
Here is the patch for the taxiway code. This code is still based on the
exsisting architecture, which is based on the FGAirport class in simple.[ch]xx
I've aimed mostly at new functionality; The next batch will probably contain
code cleanups, splitups and the implementation fo the new airport architecture,
as proposed by David Luff.
I had a quick view over the ssgBase::ref() calls in flightgear.
I made them all symmetric and used ssgDeRefDelete to dereference them.
This has the basic advantage that ssgDeRefDelete additionaly deletes the
memory instead of just decrementing the reference cound without deletion ...
This includes an incorrect deref instead of a ssgDeRefDelete in the placement
transform registration I introduced earlier. I believe that this causes the
problems with long flights (unverified, but with a big propability).
This adds a TACAN instrument to the inventory. Range and bearing are calculated
to the TACAN or VORTAC beacon selected by means of the Channel Selector in the E
quipment/Radio pull-down menu.
A TACAN beacon has also been added to the aircraft carrier Nimitz (channel #029Y
).
There was a patch from Manuel Masing a few months ago which cleaned up
SGLocation's way depending on input values. That means that with that patch
SGLocation does no longer have calls with unneeded input arguments.
I took his patch and integrated that into flightgear and made maximum use of
that changes.
Erik Hofman:
Remove some duplicate code that was moved to simgear/compiler.h
Some quite extensive changes to the AIModel code:
1. Mathias has made major changes to the AICarrier code to provide better
alignment of an aircraft on deck with the carrier - this feature is a major
improvement on the existing, but has a bug which might cause it to fail when
the computer carries out other tasks - changing window size is a known
example. This bug is outwith this code.
2. I have made significant changes to the AIShip code to enable a ship the
turn and roll smoothly.
3. I have added some simple AI which enables the carrier to remain within,
or return to, an operating box.
4. An automated turn into wind for flying operations.
5. A simplistic implementation of TACAN within AICarrier. I am in the course
of implementing this as a generic instrument, but this is some time off
completion.
I have prepared a patch that:
- Introduces a FGTileMgr::scenery_available method which asks the tilemanager
if scenery for a given range around a lat/lon pair is already loaded and make
use of that method at some -9999 meter checks.
- Introduces a FGScenery::get_elevation_m method which queries the altitude at
a given position. In constrast to the groundcache functions this is the best
choice if you ask for one *single* altitude value. Make use of that thing in
AI/ATC classes and for the current views ground level. At the current views
part the groundcache is reused if possible.
- The computation of the 'current groundlevel' is no longer done on the
tilemanagers update since the required functions are now better seperated.
Alltogether it eliminates somehow redundant terrain level computations which
are now superseeded by that more finegrained functions and the existence of
the groundcache. Additionally it introduces an api to commonly required
functions which was very complex to do prevously.
- AIManager.cxx :
- we can now have multiple <scenario> entries in the sim/ai entry in preferences.xml
- AIBase.cxx :
- added an exception handler around the loading of the 3D model to not exit FG
if the model is not found
- AIScenario.cxx :
- removed a duplicated read of the xml file, this was also exiting FG is the xml file
does not exist
I have traced that reset on carrier problem down to several problems. One of
them is the fact that on reset the carrier is updated while the aircraft is
not. That made the aircraft drop down an elevator sometimes. Depending on the
passed realtime while loading some parts of the scenery.
I have introduced the posibility to start directly on the carrier.
With that patch you will have a --carrrier=id argument where id can either be
the pennant number configured in the nimitz scenario or the carriers name
also configured in the carriers scenario.
Additionaly you can use --parkpos=id to select different positions on the
carrier. They are also configured in the scenario file.
That includes the switch of the whole FGInterface class to make use of the
groundcache.
That means that an aircraft no longer uses the current elevation value from
the scenery class. It rather has its own local cache of the aircrafts
environment which is setup in the common_init method of FGInterface and
updated either manually by calling
FGInterface::get_groundlevel_m(lat, lon, alt_m);
or implicitly by calling the above method in the
FGInterface::_updateGeo*Position(lat, lon, alt);
methods.
A call get_groundlevel_m rebuilds the groundcache if the request is outside
the range of the cache.
Note that for the real usage of the groundcache including the correct
information about the movement of objects and the velocity information, you
still need to set up the groundcache in the usual way like YASim and JSBSim
currently does.
If you use the native interface, you will get only static objects correctly.
But for FDM's only using one single ground level for a whole step this is IMO
sufficient.
The AIManager gets a way to return the location of a object which is placed
wrt an AI Object. At the moment it only honours AICarriers for that.
That method is a static one, which loads the scenario file for that reason and
throws it away afterwards. This looked like the aprioriate way, because the
AIManager is initialized much later in flightgears bootstrap, and I did not
find an easy way to reorder that for my needs. Since this additional load is
very small and does only happen if such a relative location is required, I
think that this is ok.
Note that moving on the carrier will only work correctly for JSBSim and YASim,
but you should now be able to start and move on every not itself moving
object with any FDM.
I added an AIStatic object to my OV-10 sim for use in putting city signs,
vehicles, or anything else that will be static, but that I don't want to put
in the scenery files. It's inexpensive. Before, I was making such things
from AIShip.
I also added the ability to set flight plans to repeat, so that when an
airplane reaches the end it just starts over at the beginning. This is
useful for my OV-10 sim. I have C-141 and KC-135 traffic flying approaches
to Ramstein, and I only have to define two AI objects to do this.
Also, I found an inefficiency in AIBase, where every AI object was calculating
Mach number at every dt. Now only AIBallistic objects do this.
1) The AIStorm sets the properties:
/environment/turbulence/magnitude-norm
/environment/turbulence/rate-hz
The actual turbulence effects are handled by the FDM.
If the effects are deemed unrealistic, then that will
have to be fixed in the FDM(s).
2) The zone of turbulence is cylindrical, and is centered
at the AIStorm's lat/lon. The diameter is set with
<diameter-ft>, the top with <height-msl>, the bottom is
assumed to be at <altitude> minus 1000 feet.
3) Note that the zone of turbulence may not match well with
the visual model of the storm. In this case I had to
x-offset the storm model by 4700 meters to match the zone
of turbulence. (i.e. the storm model is 4700m off center).
4) While I was in there I also increased the speed of the
lightning flashes to look more realistic.
I have done a patch to eliminate the jitter of 3D-objects near the viewpoint
(for example 3D cockpit objects).
The problem is the roundoff accuracy of the float values used in the
scenegraph together with the transforms of the eyepoint relative to the
scenery center.
The solution will be to move the scenery center near the view point.
This way floats relative accuracy is enough to show a stable picture.
To get that right I have introduced a transform node for the scenegraph which
is responsible for that shift and uses double values as long as possible.
The scenery subsystem now has a list of all those transforms required to place
objects in the world and will tell all those transforms that the scenery
center has changed when the set_scenery_center() of the scenery subsystem is
called.
The problem was not solvable by SGModelPlacement and SGLocation, since not all
objects, especially the scenery, are placed using these classes.
The first approach was to have the scenery center exactly at the eyepoint.
This works well for the cockpit.
But then the ground jitters a bit below the aircraft. With our default views
you can't see that, but that F-18 has a camera view below the left engine
intake with the nose gear and the ground in its field of view, here I could
see that.
Having the scenery center constant will still have this roundoff problems, but
like it is now too, the roundoff error here is exactly the same in each
frame, so you will not notice any jitter.
The real solution is now to keep the scenery center constant as long as it is
in a ball of 30m radius around the view point. If the scenery center is
outside this ball, just put it at the view point.
As a sideeffect of now beeing able to switch the scenery center in the whole
scenegraph with one function call, I was able to remove a one half of a
problem when switching views, where the scenery center was far off for one or
two frames past switching from one view to the next. Also included is a fix
to the other half of this problem, where the view position was not yet copied
into a view when it is switched (at least under glut). This was responsible
for the 'Error: ...' messages of the cloud subsystem when views were
switched.
I'm looking through the AI code, trying to find the bug that's killing the
thermals. The following things don't look right:
1) AIManager::101 , the Traffic Manager pointer is searched for by name at
every dt. I'll leave this for you to look at.
2) AIManager::295 , the thermal height is not being set. We need to
restore the line: ai_thermal->setHeight(entity->height_msl);
This fixes the thermal problem.
3) AIManager::328 , I changed the fetching of the user state to occur every
sim cycle, and changed the fetching function from by-name lookup to a lookup
by node pointer. It should be faster now, and more accurate too. This helps
the air-refueling.
- don't treat *every* child in the xml as submodel, especially not a "param"
block
- do not only *enable* the contrail flag above some altitude, but also
disable it below
I have done some cleanup where I moved some values out of classes where they
do not belong and such stuff.
Also the fols offsets are now named in the carrier xml file with a more
verbose name (flols-pos/offset-*) than before (only offset-*).
There is a little preparation for definitions of parking positions on the
carrier which should later be used for starting flightgear directly on the
carrier.
I attach the long-promised improved version of the USS Nimitz.
It includes an improved version of the FLOLS, which requires the attached
diff to be applied to AICarrier.cxx and AICArrier.hxx.
I've made lots of eye-candy in the form or the flightdeck crew.
Unfortunately, it about doubles the size of the tarball. I'll send it to you
later; when I've figured out some way of only loading on request (any advice
would be very welcome).
I could provide a \u2018bare\u2019 version to cut down on the vertex count for
less capable systems however, the count isn\u2019t huge in the first place.
I've cut the textures down as far as I can without losing definition.
I just heard from John Wojnaroski that you and he are going to work on getting
a flightgear demo machine up for the linux expo thursday and Friday. John
indicated that he would very much like to get a CVS version with the new
traffic code up and running before the expo.
We should now be able to find
wires or catapults when the ac3d model is loaded without the crease patch
(caused by the much more unstructured scene graph emitted by the old loader).
It should also emit more warnings if the carrier hardware configuration
includes conflicting definitions.
That code is the most intrusive one, it should not be used until you configure
an aircraft carrier as a aimodel. So I think it should be save to apply that
before the release too.
a single apt.dat.gz file which is in the native X-Plane format.
To do this I wrote a front end loader than builds the airport and runway
list. Some of the changes I needed to make had a cascading effect, so there
are minor naming changes scattered throughout the code.
I have a small update which fixes the algorythm used for marking solid
surfaces for some cases where some branch nodes carry the object names I had
expected in the leaf nodes.
That will also introduce the possibility to mark whole subtrees from the
scenegraph solid.
This is a sub-system which can be added to any carrier.
These files add a functioning Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (FLOLS).
The orange/red 'source' lights are illuminated according to the position of
the pilot's eye above/below the 3.5 deg glide slope. The apparent position
of the source light relative to the fixed green datum lights allow the pilot
to 'fly the meatball'. The green 'cut' lights flash when the pilot's eye is
below the coverage of the lowest (red) source light.
TODO - add rules for the operation of the wave-off lights.
Okay, here's the latest update to the tarffic manager/AI Manager. AITraffic
can now fly multiple routes and be initialized while sitting statically at
airports.
The moving ai models will jump around realtive to the moving aircraft model.
I can see that with the carrier but others have noticed that too with ai
aircraft before.
The reason is that all SGSystems are called with a dt value which is not
necessarily a multiple of 1/hz.
In contrast, most FDM's use the _calc_multiloop function from FGInterface
which forces the time update to be a multiple of 1/hz for the FDM aircraft.
As a result, in the worst case, the FDM aircraft has moved nearly 1/hz seconds
further than the rest of flightgear (1/120sec*300kts that is about 1.3m).
That patch forces the time update to be a multiple of 1/hz.
I attach the latest version of Nimitz. The textures have been improved. A glide-path has been added, it is on by default, but can be switched off by means of the properties browser: /ai/models/ship/controls/glide-path. The origin has been adjusted to the turning pivot and approximate roll center.
Modified AiShip files are also attached. These allow the radius of the turning circle of a ship to be input. The turning circle is adjusted for speed and rudder angle. Roll has been corrected so that a ship leans out of a turn, not inwards like an aircraft. The roll angle is adjusted for speed and rudder angle (yes, application of more rudder reduces roll angle - rudders act as stabilizers).
TODO
Add a relative wind calculation so that a carrier can be turned to the appropriate launch and recovery courses.
Add a 'flight plan' so that the carrier can carry out a racetrack for flight ops.
Add a projector landing sight.
Add auto-land facilities.
Here are files to get automated contrails working. I've set up contrails for
the 737, using my simple, untextured contrail model. Vivian has made another
contrail model, but I'm still trying to get his to work. I'm hoping others
will try to make contrail models also.
Here's some code that defines a top to thermals. When the top of a thermal is
reached the strength is phased-out linearly over the next 100 feet of
altitude. At first I tried just capping the thermal at the top, but the
change in thermal strength was too fast for the FDM to handle well.
Included is a new version of the thermal scenario that includes a top
(height-msl) to the thermal. The default value is 5000 feet.
