Description:
This update includes the new viewer interface as proposed by David M. and
a first pass at cleaning up the viewer/view manager code by Jim W.
Note that I have dropped Main/viewer_lookat.?xx and Main/viewer_rph.?xx and
modified the Makefile.am accordingly.
Detail of work:
Overall:
The code reads a little easier. There are still some unnecessary bits in
there and I'd like to supplement the comments in the viewer.hxx with a tiny
bit on each interface group and what the groupings mean (similar but briefer
than what you emailed me the other day). I tried not to mess up the style,
but there is an occasional inconsistency. In general I wouldn't call it done
(especially since there's no tower yet! :)), but I'd like to get this out
there so others can comment, and test.
In Viewer:
The interface as you suggested has been implemented. Basically everything
seems to work as it did visually. There is no difference that I can see in
performance, although some things might be a tiny bit faster.
I've merged the lookat and rph (pilot view) code into the recalc for the
viewer. There is still some redundancy between the two, but a lot has been
removed. In some cases I've taken some code that we'd likely want to inline
anyway and left it in there in duplicate. You'll see that the code for both
looks a little cleaner. I need to take a closer look at the rotations in
particular. I've cleaned up a little there, but I suspect more can be done
to streamline this.
The external declaration to the Quat_mat in mouse.cxx has been removed. IMHO
the quat doesn't serve any intrinsic purpose in mouse.cxx, but I'm not about
to rip it out. It would seem that there more conventional ways to get
spherical data that are just as fast. In any case all the viewer was pulling
from the quat matrix was the pitch value so I modified mouse.cxx to output to
our pitchOffset input and that works fine.
I've changed the native values to degrees from radians where appropriate.
This required a conversion from degrees to radians in a couple modules that
access the interface. Perhaps we should add interface calls that do the
conversion, e.g. a getHeadingOffset_rad() to go along with the
getHeadingOffset_deg().
On the view_offset (now headingOffset) thing there are two entry points
because of the ability to instantly switch views or to scroll to a new view
angle (by hitting the numeric keys for example). This leaves an anomaly in
the interface which should be resolved by adding "goal" settings to the
interface, e.g. a setGoalHeadingOffset_deg(), setGoalPitchOffset_deg(), etc.
Other than these two issues, the next step here will be to look at some
further optimizations, and to write support code for a tower view. That
should be fairly simple at this point. I was considering creating a
"simulated tower view" or "pedestrian view" that defaulted to a position off
to the right of whereever the plane is at the moment you switch to the tower
view. This could be a fall back when we don't have an actual tower location
at hand (as would be the case with rural airports).
ViewManager:
Basically all I did here was neaten things up by ripping out excess crap and
made it compatible as is with the new interface.
The result is that viewmanager is now ready to be developed. The two
preexisting views are still hardcoded into the view manager. The next step
would be to design configuration xml (eg /sim/view[x]/config/blahblah) that
could be used to set up as many views as we want. If we want to take the easy
way out, we might want to insist that view[0] be a pilot-view and have
viewmanager check for that.
interface instead of string. This will result in a lot more
efficiency later, once I add in a simple hash table for caching
lookups, since it will avoid creating a lot of temporary string
objects. The major considerations for users will be that they cannot
use
node->getName() == "foo";
any more, and will have to use c_str() when setting a string value
from a C++ string.
inclueded in some of the files. Irix doesn't have cout in the std class,
so I changed it to "cout" and included SG_USING_NAMESPACE(std) at the
beginning of the files.
And some minor warning cleanups.
and fixes a 'potential bug' if the FGFS View code were to change
I also consolidated the specialized IntersectLeaf()
as they really didn't gain us much outside of their having
'more direct access into the SSG controlled data'
I would like to see the fgCurrentElevation functions moved
out of hitlist.cxx.
The one obstacle is their being dependent on my PLib
auxillary functions
ssgGetEntityTransform()
ssgGetCurrentBSphere()
code has been run through astyle with the default options
fixed this when I made the mistake the first time.
The view code wasn't properly handling the transition across tile
boundaries so we'd get a 'flash' of the scene wrongly transformed for
one frame at every tile boundary crossing. This is what
scenery.get_next_center() is for.
the property system, among other things. A separate integration into
the FDMs will follow shortly.
This code will be used only if the --with-new-environment option is
*not* passed to configure.
separate header file. This change will help integrate properties into
JSBSim.
Also, I (David Megginson) removed most of the SimGear include
statements from globals.hxx, reducing the amount of recompilation
every time SimGear changes. This required making minor changes to a
lot of files that were depending on the side-effects of the inclusions
in globals.hxx.
- implement the standard FGSubsystem interface, for consistency
- eliminate current_autopilot and add get/set_autopilot to FGGlobals,
for consistency
- use private methods rather than static functions for tying
properties
There should be no change in functionality.
is a work in progress and needs severe enhancement before it will be
useful. It provides a UDP data channel that goes both ways between
flightgear and the fdm. It also provides a TCP 'command' channel so
flightgear can 'reliably' send commands to the remote fdm (such as set
starting position, reset on ground, etc.)
includes the ability to specify per vertex normals rather than depending
the normals list being the same as the vertices list. (Support for
previous binary file format scenery is maintained.)
This seems to pretty much correct the problem. Part of the problem is that
rotations are occuring at the firewall (model origin) which seems a little
un-natural inside the cockpit. The rest of the problem is I am just learning
how this stuff works (I know I've been saying this for a couple months
now...but hey I'm slow :-)).
* Add new trigger types: raise, fall
* Add new trigger offset parameter
* Add new volume/pitch types: inv, abs, sqrt
* Add initial support for multiple events to intervere in a single sound
(by using the same name, see the crank section of 172-sound.xml)
* Cached the volume/pitch type fucntions
(No more if's inside the loops in update())
created a new class, FGViewPoint (declared in viewer.hxx) that holds a
single position in FlightGear coordinates, and have used it to factor
a lot of the common code out of viewer_lookat.cxx and viewer_rph.cxx.
I don't know whether this new class will stay or not; it might just be
a temporary step, or it might end up taking over much of the current
viewer functionality. It would be a bad idea to code against it right
now.
plane to 0.2; otherwise, use the old defaults.
This is a temporary step that will allow me to work on a 3D cockpit
without breaking current behaviour; the final approach will be to put
the 3D model in its own scene graph, with different clipping plane.
OK, attached is a replacement for mouse.cxx that works the view using
the view-offset/tilt interface, rather than the (kinda odd) GuiQuat
stuff. It's kind of a hack job, as I left the hooks to GuiQuat in in
other places for fear of breaking something. Still, it removed more
code from mouse.cxx than it added, which has to count for some
elegance points.
Oh yeah, I forgot to send that one along. This one is my bug, I
goofed the precedence in the fgPanelVisible() function in panel.cxx
such that the panel was *always* visible if virtual cockpit was
enabled. Here's a replacement. I've modified the style from a single
boolean expression to an if-list, since that's more readable to my
eyes for expressions this big:
and soon to be renamed) is true, FlightGear will draw the 3-D model
even in internal view. This makes sense right now only with the C310
model, since the others don't have any kind of interiors modeled and
all surfaces in all models are one-sided.
This isn't quite working yet -- the view code is very hard to
disentangle, and currently, if the view is not forward, roll and pitch
are applied incorrectly. It looks interesting (modulo a messy model)
on the ground, in level flight, or looking straight ahead under any
other flight conditions.
to 10m after takeoff, but that doesn't really make sense any more,
especially if models are going to have interior views. Is there any
real saving in pushing the near plane out anyway?
was some confusion between degrees and radians which would lead to a huge
goal_view_offset value. The display would sit and spin for a *long* time
trying to wind it's way up to this large value.
difference between the two is this: A sample is file related and sound
is a authonomus entity. This means you can have several sounds pointing
to a single sample. In that case, just one sample is loaded into memory.
The advantage is you can play the same sample with different pitch or
volume, but with just one sample loaded into memory.
To fully support this there is a new fucntion call:
FGSimpleSound *sample = new FGSimpleSound("filename");
mgr->add(sample, "name");
should be replaced by:
FGSimpleSound *sample = mgr->add("name", "filename");
But the old behaviour is still supported with one minor change, sounds
with the same name aren't supported anymore.
Erik
Actually, I think I'm off the hook here; the problem is pre-existing.
What's happening is that the x/y offsets enter the modelview matrix at
line 346 in the current panel.cxx. But note that the same
transformation also occurs before each instrument rendered at line
403. What's happening is that the instruments are double-translated
relative to the background.
Unless I'm not understanding something, the one inside the instrument
render loop looks unnecessary. Removing it fixes the issue and
doesn't cause any bugs that I can find. It also fixes a bug where you
could scroll the instruments on top of the 3D panel, where the offsets
are supposed to be ignored. :)
Attached is a new panel.cxx which fixes that bug, and substantially
simplifies the virtual panel code (the matrix inversion that I thought
was needed wasn't, but there were some offsetting scale bugs that hid
the problem).
These changes add to the "Add Waypoint" dialog so that you can see the entire
list in the pui dialog that you are adding to. Also made some minor changes
so that the autopilot is now activated (toward first waypoint target heading)
when a waypoint is added.
command will save *all* properties, rather than just those marked as
archivable. This feature was requested by Tony Peden to make it
easier to write documentation on the properties, but it should also be
useful for debugging. There is currently no default binding for the
command with the write-all parameter set to true.
What the attached patch does is map your panel definition onto a (non
z-buffered) quad in front of your face. You can twist the view around
and see it move in the appropriate ways.
Apply the patch (let me know if folks need help with that step), and
then set the /sim/virtual-cockpit property to true. You can do this
on the command line with --prop:/sim/virtual-cockpit=1, or via the
property picker. Bind it to a key for fast toggling if you like.
The default bindings don't allow for "panning" the view, so you'll
have to modify yours. These are the mappings to my joystick's hat
switch, for those who need hints:
<axis n="6">
<desc>View Direction</desc>
<low>
<repeatable>true</repeatable>
<binding>
<command>property-adjust</command>
<property>/sim/view/goal-offset-deg</property>
<step type="double">1.0</step>
</binding>
</low>
<high>
<repeatable>true</repeatable>
<binding>
<command>property-adjust</command>
<property>/sim/view/goal-offset-deg</property>
<step type="double">-1.0</step>
</binding>
</high>
</axis>
<axis n="7">
<desc>View Elevation</desc>
<low>
<repeatable>true</repeatable>
<binding>
<command>property-adjust</command>
<property>/sim/view/goal-tilt-deg</property>
<step type="double">1.0</step>
</binding>
</low>
<high>
<repeatable>true</repeatable>
<binding>
<command>property-adjust</command>
<property>/sim/view/goal-tilt-deg</property>
<step type="double">-1.0</step>
</binding>
</high>
</axis>
While the current implementation is happy with just plastering the
panel's notion of "screen" into the 3D world, this is actually more
general. Each panel can, in principle, have it's own coordinate
system, and you could build a cockpit out of a bunch of them. The
mapping is specified by providing a 3D coordinate for three corners of
the quad the panel should be mapped to; this should be pretty simple
to work with.
All that's needed for a perfectly general solution is a convention on
where to store the information (a cockpit xml file, or put it in the
aircraft -set file, or...), and some work on the panel's coordinate
system conventions (some of which don't coexist very nicely with a
generalized 3D environment). Combine that with a plib model for the
non-panel interior of the cockpit, and we're golden.
I'm actually really pleased with this. It worked better and more
quickly than I could have imagined, and impact on the surrounding code
is quite light -- a few property tests only. But some stuff is still
missing:
+ No equivalent work was done to the HUD, so it still displays
incorrect headings when the view changes. The use of pixel
coordinates deep in the HUD code is going to give me fits doing the
port, I sure. It's not nearly so well put together as the panel
(where I just changed the setup code -- none of the rendering code
changed at all).
+ I forgot that the panel was clickable. :) Input events still have
the screen coordinates, which essentially kills the interactivity
when in virtual cockpit mode. This won't be hard to fix; it's only
broken because I forgot the feature existed.
And one note about the implementation choice: to get away from the
inevitable near clip plane issue, the virtual cockpit renderer simply
disables the z buffer. This means that cockpits built using these
panels need to be z-sorted, which isn't too hard since they are static
geometry. It also means that no two "virtual panels" can ever be
allowed to interpenetrate. No biggie.
actually very powerful when combined with factor and offset -- for
example, on the C310 model the nose wheel can now retract completely
before the doors start closing.
subsystem to Flightgear. No more functionality is implemented
than at present (apart from an ATIS bug-fix - station wouldn't
change if the radio was switched directly from one station to
another) but it is much neater than the current hack and should be
easily extendable.
Some cruft is still probably left over in radiostack.[ch]xx such as
the bindings to the comm frequencies but I'll leave removing those
until I'm sure they're not needed there.
newauto.cxx. Basically everything is the same functionally except for a
changed in the initial altitude setting to 3000ft instead of meters (the panel
is in feet).
and scaling of control values to properties. Also added a time interpolation
feature that replaces the hacked-in "retract-time" feature for the gear in
a more general way (applicable to flaps, too!). Incompatibly breaks
the XML syntax; get new files!
individual aircraft to have different sounds (and cleaning up my code
a fair bit). The most important user-visible change is the renaming
of the /sim/sound property to /sim/sound/audible.
(other than "none") is "spin", which must be tied to a property giving
a value in RPM. This gets the DC-3 propellers turning. The next type
will be "rotation", which will allow the flaps, elevators, ailerons,
and rudders to move (and even gear, eventually). Later, I'll add
"shift" for sliding things around, and will figure something out for
blinking lights.
the XML file, including the path to the 3D file.
This change obsoletes the existing /sim/model/*-offset-deg and
/sim/model/*-offset-m properties in the main property tree, and
replaces them with /offsets/*-deg and /offsets/*-m in the model
property file. The /path property in the model XML file is relative
to the XML file's location rather than FG_ROOT.
Added two new properties:
/environment/temperature-sea-level-degc
/environment/pressure-sea-level-inhg
These are now supported in FGEnvironment as well, though they always
have the same value for now. They need to be hooked up to the FDMs.
different locations, and hitched it into FGGlobals. FGEnvironmentMgr
has taken over as the subsystem, while FGEnvironment is simple the
information that it returns. I've removed current_environment
completely -- everything now uses properties or goes through
FGGlobals. FGGlobals itself has a couple of useful methods:
const FGEnvironment * get_environment ();
const FGEnvironment * get_environment (double lat, double lon, double alt);
The first one returns the environment data for the plane's current
position, while the second returns the environment data for any
arbitrary location. Currently, they both return the same information,
but that will change soon.
properties have been renamed from wind-(north|east|down)-fps to
wind-from-(north|east|down)-fps, and the FDMs modified appropriately.
No other changes should be visible unless FG_OLD_WEATHER is defined.
Attached are patches for adding the command line options to set initial
glideslope and climb rate. This was really easy to do as all the pieces
were in place. It works well with JSBSim because the trimming routine
finds the right throttle and elevator settings. It should work with
LaRCsim as well, but it has no trimming routine so there will be some
dynamics at startup. I don't know what YASim will do.
the panel controls for the autopilot. The heading dialog would only show the
last setting you did through it, even if it was later tweaked with the bug on
the hsi. The altitude dialog did a similar thing. Now the values default to
the same that show on the panel displays.
via the command line (--enable-clock-freeze / --disable-clock-freeze)
and can be toggled during a run. However this property is not currently
bound to any menu or keystroke so you have to do it via the gui property
interface or externally via the web property browser or a script.
are being driven from an external data source.)
Akso found and fixed a bug in the simgear that caused the time to go goofy
temporarily while scenery was being loaded.
as well as visibility.
This means that if you are using this protocal to exchange data with a
visual channel, you should be able to change time and visibility on the master
and all the slaved visual channels will match it.
Attached is a fix to add a short period of cranking time required
before the engine fires. I've also added a little hack to limit the
torque applied by the starter motor when the rpm is less than 10 in
order to avoid the rpm overshooting idle in the first time step when
the prop is producing very little resistance due to the low rpm.
- remove buffer with class scope
- remove variable 'length' (isn't used anywhere)
- make process_command private (it isn't used anywhere outside, and it
shouldn't be)
- define buffers where they are needed (two places)
- comment out stale debug message (it doesn't buy anything, because the
contents are output two lines below, anyway)
- let every error message begin with "ERR ". This makes error messages
less beautiful, but easier to recognize for scripts. Every internet
protocol that outputs text, has such a tag for distinguishing regular
output from error messages. (pop3 uses "-ERR ", smtp uses error codes,
etc.)
- fix html bug (<form> was closed by another <form>, instead of </form>)
- remove useless <br>
- fix a bug, that would have truncated an argument containing a '&'
- extend the comment for urlEncode: cite the concerned RFC
max(width, height) by default (easily changeable) rather than just width.
(src/GUI/gui.cxx, src/Main/main.cxx, src/Main/viewer.cxx, src/Main/viewer.hxx)
This works on a CygWin build, and probably works on non-Cygwin builds
as well.
2. Enable FG to start even if audio is not available. (soundmgr.cxx)
Avoids the FGSoundMgr constructor crashing; the rest of FG then runs
OK without sound.
1. Enable auto-configure on more versions of auto tools. (configure.in)
2. Warnings from auto-configure tools. (src/Time/Makefile.am)
3. Typo: "the it's" -> "its". (docs-mini/README.Joystick)
4. Remove definition of FGViewer::update() that now is (or can be) pure
virtual\
. (src/Main/viewer.cxx)
5. Preferred form of function name according to comments in plib:
"not_working"\
-> "notWorking". (src/Sound/soundmgr.hxx)
format before reading/writing data from/to remote machine. This allows
different endian machines to talk to each other. Also added support for
passing time and time offset (warp) in the data packet.
