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.
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.
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)
- automake-1.4 sets default values for INCLUDES which we can't
overwrite.
- automake-1.5 renames this to DEFAULT_INCLUDES and leaves INCLUDES
open for the developer to use.
Thus for automake-1.4 we are forced to 'append' to INCLUDES and in
automake-1.5 we can just set the value to whatever we like.
Unfortunately, the behaviors of the two versions are mutually
incompatible.
The solution I am committing now works for both versions but
automake-1.5 generates a lot of spurious warning messages that are
annoying, but not fatal.
(i.e. multiloop). Most subsystems currently ignore the parameter, but
eventually, it will allow all subsystems to update by time rather than
by framerate.
Here's an unusual patch for FlightGear -- I've created .cvsignore
files for every source directory, to make CVS output more informative.
This is especially nice when using cvs-examine from (X)Emacs to look
for changes.
- delete table in destructor
** src/FDM/flight.cxx
- bind engine properties in FGInterface::bind, and publish properties
for all engines rather than just engine 0
** src/Main/fg_props.cxx
- removed all engine properties; now bound in FGInterface::bind
** src/Sounds/fg_fx.cxx
- support multiple engine and cranking sounds
** src/Sounds/fg_fx.hxx
- support multiple engine and cranking sounds
Heres an update to the ATIS stuff. In brief:
The possible buffer overflow in the display with wind should
hopefully be fixed.
Temperature is taken from the global temperature property instead
of being hardwired.
The display class now includes an implementation of the member
function to change the repeating message.
The message callsign is no longer hardwired. The first message
from each station is generated with a random callsign.
Subsequent messages from the same station have the callsign
incremented every hour. A map of airport-id vs. last callsign and
transmission time is kept for each station that has transmitted for
the duration of the FlightGear session. The logic might be flaky if
FlightGear is run for more than 24 hours at a stretch between
visiting the same ATIS station though! (ie I don't check the day.)
This map is kept in the atislist class. This might not be the best
long-term place for it (in an ATC class of some sort might be
better), but it works for now.
fix startup sequence problems where we initialize the FDM before we know
the desired starting altitude.
These changes delay fdm initialization until the local tile has been loaded
and we can do a real intersection and find the true ground elevation.
In order to do this, I depend more on the property manager as glue, rather
than the FGInterface.
There are some glitches still when switching to a new airport or reseting
the sim. I will work on addressing these, but I need to commit the changes
so far to keep in sync with other developers.
meaning of "win_ratio". I've removed win_ratio and added fov_ratio and
aspect_ratio, as it seems both are needed.
n.b. The multi-line changes in fgReshape comprise:
extracting common code,
removing an apparently arbitrary "+1" on the view height,
changing "set_win_ratio" to "set_aspect_ratio".
in init)
- free data structures in destructor
- ensure that interpolation tables are allocated before any searching
is done; otherwise, starting at some locations (such as CYYZ) causes
a segfault
with different modifiers (the format of the key bindings has changed
again slightly, adding a <code>..</code> element; see keyboard.xml for
details).
2. Modified FGInput to try default modifiers for ctrl, shift, and alt
when the initial bindings fail (i.e. you don't have to specify
mod-shift explicitly for upper-case 'P' any more).
3. Fixed problems with properties and panel reloading reported by
Martin Dressler and John Check.
4. Updated preferences.xml to get rid of obsolete references to
/controls/brakes/left and /controls/brakes/right (as reported by John
Check).
There were also two non-bugs reported by John Check:
(a) Differential braking doesn't work (John was using the obsolete
properties from #4 above).
(b) Duplicates show up in the property tree using the telnet interface
(the property tree doesn't show indices, and John was seeing separate
entries for each possible engine, etc.).
When you tune into a station start at a "random" point in the sequence.
Sped up the words per minute to 13 to which means one sequence per about 4 secs.
This means we get through the whole sequence in about 20 seconds leaving 10
seconds of silence.
