signals, this is meant for attaching listeners. The ufo will use that to
hide/reveal the status line in screenshots. The following signal properties
are now available:
/sim/signals/exit ... set to 1 right before quitting
/sim/signals/reinit ... set to 1 on re-init (Shift-Esc)
/sim/signals/screenshot ... set to 1 before and to 0 after screenshot
/sim/signals/click ... set to 1 after mouse clicks at terrain, signalling
that the geo coords in /sim/input/click/ were updated
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
only used by the <list> widget. It allows to "dialog-update" the list,
which rescans the <value> children and redraws the list widget with new
contents. The old contents are only freed at dialog close, which should
eventually get changed.
two almost identical functions for these methods. It only forces to repeat
the redundancy for every small change to either.
- abstract out generation and destruction of plib string arrays
- abstract out generation of lists from <value> children
used in dialog.cxx to allow XML dialogs access to their own prop tree via
Nasal's cmdarg(). That way dialogs can generate dynamic content, such as
list entries.
- only call globals->set_initial_waypoints() if the waypoints list address
has actually changed, that is: if it has just been initialized
- remove trailing spaces
- fix indentation
but got changed so that Nasal listeners wouldn't be triggered needlessly.
Doesn't make sense, though, as Nasal will never be available before the
video size is set, and it prevents the window interface from setting the
startup size.)
"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."
list) and the arrows are clicked (patch sent to plib; workaround it to
be removed once fgfs officially depends on a plib version that includes
the fix)
- fix (very unlikely) crash in case the widget is redrawn between list
destruction and setting of the new list.
even be more than once in the same list. We need to remove all such instances,
or the a pointer to TowerPlaneRec may become invalid and cause crashes.
The proper fix would, of course, be to be careful with state changes and
to prevent *any* duplication of entries. [OK'ed by David]
colors: <color-{{back,fore}ground,highlight,label,legend,misc,editfield}>
<input-misc>, for example, sets the input field cursor color, <input-legend>
the input field text color. (This feature was always planned as part of the
'theming' capabilities, and most code is already in place. Only this line
was apparently fogotten. :-)
a crash when using the model manager from XML files (which apparently
nobody does, anyway ;-) Now those models work (again), but have no
shadows. Those placed at runtime (e.g. via ufo) still have a shadow.
<property>, except if they are activated, in which case the user input
should, of course, not get overwritten. But if such an input was active and
the user selected a different widget, then its contents were dropped.
Fix that by setting the "DownCallback" for live input fields.
Here is one patch that to make FlightGear run without floating point
exceptions on FreeBSD. Apparently, if we do not ignore floating point
exceptions per this patch, there is some occasional condition where the
nvidia driver is involved in delivering spurious floating point exceptions
to the fgfs process, causing it to core-dump occasionally without the patch.
With only this patch, FlightGear will compile and run properly on
FreeBSD 6.X as long as the nvidia accelerated driver is installed,
modulo proper switches to the SimGear and FlightGear configure script
executions.
Again, kudos to your team for the great work on the big release
push; it is super to see things come together like this!
- reduce it to 20 (30 is excessive and didn't match the property brower look)
- call puSlider with this size explicitly (otherwise its size is derived
from the font size, unlike the arrow buttons!)
respected, and black text on dark grey is a bit hard to read).
TODO: - submit that for inclusion in plib's puAuxList
- drop custom version and use plib's (after 0.9.10)
I had inadvertently terminated a data line when reaching a tab character after
initial data was supplied. I tested the lightning file and it now appears to
read in correctly.
entry was selected. Return 0 in this case, not an invalid string address
(causing segfaults).
dialogs.cxx: don't set property if no list entry was chosen.
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.
bunch of memory leaks that had accumulated over the years. FlightGear
doesn't currently bother to destroy and recreate a YASim context, but
at least it can do so now without worry.
groundcache addition -- the ground callback doesn't do anything at
solution time, so the ground plane was unset. Valgrind was whining
about this; it's not clear that it was actually causing a problem.
a race condition ending in warping twice and having huge increments for the
second warp.
I am not aware of such a flush function in glut. So we emulate that by
ignoring mouse move events between a warp mouse and the next frame.
That should make glut behavour aequivalent to sdl behavour.
This isn't the case if the model is destroyed on fgfs exit. To make <unload>
work under these circumstances, one would have to reorder subsystem removal,
but this doesn't seem overly useful, so we'll do it when we really need it.
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.
implement FGNasalModelData class for execution of XML <load> and <unload>
scripts. modelLoaded() is called by the model loader, and the destructor
on branch removal.
modelmgr.cxx:
tilemgr.cxx:
tileentry.[ch]xx:
make scenery and custom objects run their Nasal scripts on loading
and unloading. Let OBJECT_STATIC object not be cached.
<nasal>
<open>print("I'm called on dialog open")</open>
<close>print("I'm called on dialog close")</close>
</nasal>
All Nasal runs in a dialog namespace, so that variables and functions
defined in the <open> block can be used in <binding>s, etc. This is
especially useful for <radio> button handling. See "location-in-air.xml".
mf:
pthread_cancel doesn't seem to work correctly on all supported platforms.
It apparently causes SGBlockingQueue::pop() to correctly leave the thread on
the cancellation point pthread_wait(), but the SGGuard() destructor isn't
called, so the queue mutex remains locked. This triggered an assert() on
pthread_join(). This patch uses an empty ICAO request as signal for the
thread to terminate itself.
I have implemented a Honeywell MK VIII EGPWS emulation for FlightGear.
The MK VIII is an Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System aimed at
regional turboprop and small turbofan aircrafts such as the Citation,
Citation Bravo, B1900D, Beechcraft 99 and L410.
Frederic Bouvier:
make the MSVC compilation possible. Rearrange base package directories.
The original code selected the most preferable runway combination,
regardless of which combination was currently active. This patch
builds in some additional resistance against change, by keeping
track of which runways are already in use, and forces a change
in active runways only when new (wheather/time of day) conditions
force it to do so, resulting in much more consistent runway assignment.
behavior.
and in the calculation of the launchbar angle (by Vivian).
It also calculates the holdback angle, and sets a Boolean value which
can be used to initiate the release of the catapult strop submodel at
the appropriate moment (new code by Vivian).
control to piston engines that allows external scripts to control the
turbo/supercharger boost programatically by setting this axis to
values in the range [0:1]. It also adds a "turbo-lag" attribute (a
time in seconds) to engines implementing turbocharger spooling delays.
This isn't terribly well tested, but doesn't seem to have broken
anything.
I am attaching a trivial patch that changes the normalization from 24 to
12 in turn_indicator.cxx. With this change, the pa24 tc has a turn
indicator spin value in the property tree of 0.9996 and the same value
for the pa28-161 is 1.0, so there is no harm to a 24 volt electrical
system in this change. Should the battery or alternator put out a lower
voltage than 12 volts, the spin value goes down and the tc shows a
negative turn that increases as the voltage gets less. This file shows
you as the author. If you are comfortable with this change, commit it
to cvs and the tc will be correct even for 12 volt systems.
propeller pitch stops for constant speed propellers. The default
values are the same as the previous hard-coded values. The new
attributes, "fine-stop" and "coarse-stop", are documented in the base
package, Docs/README.yasim.
- remove cleanup handler that unlocks unused mutex
- make the result_queue a locking queue (blocking is only done in the
pop() anyway, and this isn't used in the thread at all)
- don't disallow thread cancelling in the request_queue's pop(), which
is the only cancellation point in this thread
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 makes FlightGear at least compile on MSVC. I hope I have removed
reference of my other local changes. DSP and DSW files are included for
reference. They have been reconstructed with am2dsp.pl. I had to introduce a
change to am2dsp because of the need of filenames with embedded spaces. (Yuck)
The major direction is to remove clutter like the _USE_MATH_DEFINES and have it
on the compiler command line sice there is no central include file. You will
have to put it on the command line for your locale Project files, if it not
there, already. I added the _CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE define for 2005, since it
does no harm to other VC version.
the mouse pointer to a new position. Otherwise it can happen that the new
position is first set, but then come a few still unprocessed events for the
old position. This makes ugly jumps in mouse view mode.
the mouse rather than wrapping it. Wrapping around to the other side
of the screen has very bad consequences when using the mouse for
flying or viewing -- it can result in sudden jumps in the controls or
the viewpoint when the mouse jumps to another side of the screen.
Right now, the mouse is constrained to stay between 25% and 75% of the
screen on both the X and Y axis -- whenever it hits an edge, it jumps
back to the centre of the screen again (which causes no control or
view jump).
or write to the color properties in /sim/screen/. If this Nasal/GUI
implementation turns out to be too slow, we'll write a generic OpenGL/plib
version simliar to the ATCdisplay code. (OK'ed by Andy and Stuart)
or write to the color properties in /sim/screen/. If this Nasal/GUI
implementation turns out to be too slow, we'll write a generic OpenGL/plib
version simliar to the ATCdisplay code. (OK'ed by Andy and Stuart)
or write to the color properties in /sim/screen/. If this Nasal/GUI
implementation turns out to be too slow, we'll write a generic OpenGL/plib
version simliar to the ATCdisplay code. (OK'ed by Andy and Stuart)
scripts that load/write user specific data that shouldn't go to PWD, and
can't go to $FG_ROOT (due to permissions and clean separation of 'official'
data and local modifications)
right corner, not those that are result of centering a dialog if no x/y are
given. This centers screen.log messages correctly. But maybe we have to
rethink that special meaning of negative coords altogether.
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 ...
problems because a lot of people already have their *real* preferences
set in ~/.fgfs/preferences.xml (and don't want fgfs to stomp over them),
because the name doesn't tell people that their data aren't save there
(comments!), and because this is inconsistent with the global preferences.xml
file, where user changes *are* respected.
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.
because a dialog button can get pressed when its callback isn't available
any more. Ideally, we would close the dialog or update its buttons when
this happens. But this requires bigger changes.
/sim/messages/{atc,pilot,ai-plane,ground,approach}
These can the be used for differenct screen.log colors and for different
voices. (Aircraft & tutoruals may want to write to /sim/messages/copilot)
Fix the current buggy rain orientation behaviour for the views attached to the
aircraft (while still inheriting bugs with the views attached to anything else).
I had massive problems with tower.cxx, so I decided to doublecheck all
containers and iterators in order and found lot of potential problems.
Now I can fly with "debug on" of KSFO for minutes without problems.
The fix for AIMgr is from Mathias, but I reworked it. So blame me, not him.
- 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
Jon Stockill wrote:
> I've just discovered that when using the null fdm I'm not getting
> updates to /position/ground-elev-m any more. So I can't actually
> retrieve the terrain elevation. Is there somewhere else in the property
> tree I could read this from?
The attached patch fixes this problem.
This patch limits the maximum simtime we do simulation computations for.
That is highly sensible if you run flightgear in valgrind or some realy slow
debug build. In such a case it is possible that flightgear gets totally
unresponsible, because simulation time might increase slower than real time.
That patch introduces a maximum simulation time per rendered frame to limit
that effect.
If the property /sim/max-simtime-per-frame is set to something strictly
positive, the simulation time is limited to that value.
The default is unchanged - no limit.
Anyway, from the point of view of gui responsiveness and responsiveness to
realtime controls like joystick inputs it might be a good idea to limit that
by default to say 1 second. If you have less than 1fps, flightgear is
unplayable anyway and I believe we do not longer need to care for realtime
correctness for that case ...
though the window wasn't resized. I'm just not adventurous enough for
a cleaner solution in the light of the upcoming release. At least the
xsize/ysize properties aren't set each frame any more, so listeners
work now properly.
Incorporating the shared ptr code:
- All scenegraph references from SimGear
- SGMaterial which already had a reference counter uses now that common
infrastructure.
- SGMatModel is now counted.
- SGSoundSample from SimGear
- And the corresponding change for the sound samples in flightgear which fixes
a latent crash if FGBeacon would evern be deleted.
Erik Hofman:
This patch contains an update to net_ctrls.hxx that adds an extra 100 bytes
(or an equivalent of 25 (u)int32_t types) of reserved space. This could be
used to make the protocol forward and backward compatibel within a certain
scope. Be sure to read the instructions at the begining of the header file
when addinf new variables.
"play-audio-function" command. This function can be called from internal
code, from nasal scripts, or from external scripts to play a single one-off
wav file. File/audio data is loaded and unloaded on the fly automatically.
Create a queue of one-off wav files. Calling layer can request the system
to play any wav file. The request is thrown at the end of a play queue.
The queue is serviced sequentially so that queued wav files will no longer
overlap. When a sample is finished playing. It is removed from the queue
and deleted from memory. The next remaining request in the queue is then
played.
- Provide a Nasal interface to display simple text messages on the screen
like the ATC display. In fact, I copied the code from the ATCDisplay.cxx
and simply shifted it further down the screen.
Erik:
TODO: Integrate the two pieces of code.
anything in the nav tree is valid or not.
- Fix an order problem between caching data values and searching for a new
station that could cause odd and unexpected and hard to reproduce results.
Added a convenience function to estimate the time to intercept the selected
radial give the current heading and speed. This can be useful to a flight
directory to compute the point to switch from armed to coupled mode at just
the right time so the pilot can roll out onto the desired heading on the
desired radial.
Add a first whack at estimating a ground track heading error (difference
between aircraft heading and ground track directon.) This needs more work
and testing.
The prototype of update_metar_properties does not match overridden func.
trafficmgr: iterators below begin() and after end().
tower.cxx : iterator incrementing beyond end().
replaced with efficient listener callbacks. One use is the new FPS display.
This is reviewed and OK'ed by Andy, relatively trivial and separated from
the rest of Nasal, so problems are quite unlikely and confined to users of
this function.
The callback is executed whenever the property is written to -- even if
the value didn't change. The triggering Node is available via cmdarg().
Examples: _setlistener("/sim/crashed", func {print("haha!")});
_setlistener("/foo/bar", func { print(cmdarg().getPath() ~ " changed")})
it's also possible to enable/disable menu/item entries with higher numbers.
This can be useful for adding entries from other config files (aircraft
specific or local). I'd say aircraft files can use indices starting with
[100] and local files starting with [1000]. Such high number will never
collide with an entry in menubar.xml, even if entries are added/removed
there.
Display the ground intersection point on mouse click (if click not consumed
by the gui or the panel.) This should eventually get stuffed into the
property tree.
Computes the pick direction and starting point. This is code that translates
a screen coordinate into a vector in the FlightGear world (between the eye and
the on-screen coordinate.) Armed with this vector in FG world coordinates,
you could call a scenery intersection routine and lookup the lon/lat/elev of
the point in the world that was clicked on.
* in some cases more specific sg exception types were used in place
of the more generic one, e.g., sg_io_exception instead of sg_exception
when the context of the error was an IO error
* in some cases, the error message was made more specific
* minor style fix for exception rethrowing --- using throw; whenever
a re-throw is made; sometimes optimizing away the exception symbol name
in the catch handler at all
* more specific catch handlers added in some places -- e.g.,
an sg_io_exception caught ahead of sg_exception
- 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; ..."
Unfortunately, we don't have an easy way to access the puObjects
only by knowing the respective XML property node, because the
menu structure was built by plib from string lists. That's why
we walk the puMenuBar tree and store {property node}->{puObject*}
pairs in a map. With this infrastructure in place we can now
easily enable/disable entries, but we can also make other changes
to menu buttons as we see need. The structure of puMenuBar is
described in the pui documentation, so it's less of a hack than
it looks. :-)
remove a hack and do it properly: if the requested elevation is for some
reason below the surface and the intersection test fails (as it appears
to be the case in EGLL), try again from 10000m ASL
mf: typos
Insert empty string as marker between FG_SCENERY path elements.
FG_SCENERY=A:B expands to [A/Terrain, A/Objects, "", B/Terrain, B/Objects, ""]
(assuming that both A/ and B/ have Terrain/ and Objects/ subdirs).
tileentry.cxx -- FGTileEntry::load():
Check all tile dirs in FG_SCENERY from left to right: add all objects
to the scenery until a terrain tile was found: In this case read the
rest of that group (i.e. the Objects/ twin dir) and then stop scanning.
Better structuring of log messages & fix warnings.
sea tile, and finally process the objects. This guarantees that all objects
are placed relative to a valid tile center, rather than to the origin (0/0/0).
This is important for objects in sea tiles, and allows to display objects
of *.stg files that came sooner in FG_SCENERY.
This was the reason why some people (especially SuSE10.0/gcc 4.0.2
users) couldn't see others in MP. I don't even know why I'm committing
that. It's less important than taxi lights ...
metar fetcher. Effectively this caused the metar thread and the main
thread to both attempt to fetch weather data. This could lead to long pauses
when the main thread decided to fetch the weather, and introduced a race
condition that could cause a segfault/crash.
Investigating this issue, I discovered that even longer ago, someone confused
#defines and #ifdef symbols with C/C++ variables. If I #define XYZ 0 it is
defined so #ifdef XYZ is true, not false like a variable. Our thread
detection made this mistake and there were follow up patches to work around
it.
So I fixed the configure script (ahhh, reading the autoconf manual is highly
recommended excercise for people editing the configure.ac file.) I also
discovered that we were hardwiring with_threads=yes with no way via configure
options to disable threads from the build so I fixed that.
Then I patched up the #ifdef's scattered through the code to match the
configure script changes, oh and by the way, I stumbled upon a past typo
that led to the race condition in the metar fetching thread and fixed that.
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.
too old (wrong system time or broken proxy): stops after 10 stale reports
were fetched in a row. This should simply stop further fetching, but due
to a bug in the threading system(?) it does currently lead to abortion,
just like any other exception in the fetcher.
each other out. The problem is this: if we press, for example, "Ctrl-a", but
release the "Ctrl" modifier button *before* the "a" button (which nobody does
intentionally, but which happens all the time), then we don't get the RELEASE
signal on "Ctrl-a" (keycode 1), but on the "a" (79). But "a" hasn't been
pressed, so the signal is dropped. And who releases "Ctrl-a"? Nobody!
So the next PRESSED signal for "Ctrl-a" is ignored, too. It is still
"pressed" after all, isn't it? That's the reason for the occasional
non-functioning of keys.
Due to the nearing 0.9.9 release, I only commit a crude last-minute fix.
It's not as intrusive as it looks, and shouldn't be "dangerous" at all.
It only makes sure that when we get an unexpected RELEASE for one letter
key ("a") that the two twins "A" and "Ctrl-A" are released if they are
still in "pressed" state.
The proper fix will be to let fg_os{,_sdl}.cxx always report presses on the
same key ("a", "Shift-a", "Ctrl-a", "Alt-a", and other combinations of
modifiers) as the *same* key (97), only with modifiers appropriately set.
are sharp, as intended. These were are never seen in practice; I
found the problem while looking at 360 degree lift curve graphs
looking for discontinuities.
to pop themselves down while the simulator is paused.
The problem was with the "real time" queue in the event manager,
causing the third argument of Nasal's settimer() (a flag for "sim
time") to be ignored. Inverts the default sense of the argument, as
there are lots of uses of settimer() in the current code, almost none
of which want to use real time.
Note this fix introduces a header file incompatibility in SimGear --
be sure to update.
to other color than "Yeukky Pink"; #undef'ed for older plib versions; plib
patch will be made available in case fgfs 0.9.9 is released before plib 0.8.5
redraw(): redraw gui without distroying dialogs (fgcommand "gui-redaw"/Shift-F10)
This change makes sure that Nasal-generated and dynamic dialogs can be
re-opened correctly when cycling through themes.
Take any arbitrary vector (not necessarily vertical) and intersect it with
the current set of loaded terrain tiles. Returns lon, lat, elev. This
could have a multitude of useful applications such as testing line of sight
between two objects, faking a terrain following lookahead radar system,
virtual georeferencing, etc.
because this creates an empty entry if it didn't exist. This made the
activation of the dialog mandatory before the next gui subsystem update()
happened. Otherwise fgfs segfaulted.
right/upper screen edge (analogous to the --geometry spec), assuming
that we never want to draw outside the screen area; for this to work
we need to write the original x/y coords back to overwrite the absolute,
positive values that the layouter stored there
"jitter" when the aircraft was stopped. This is a fundamental
characteristic of the gear model, and can't be fixed without major
surgery (and not a small amount of blinding insight). But we can at
least clamp it so the value can't change unless the wheel is moving
with a nontrivial velocity (5cm/sec in this case).
property (e.g. <keynum>49</keynum>). The numbers are the same as in
keyboard.xml. (Could later be replaced/enhanced with <key>Ctrl-a</key>
notation.) This does, of course, only work for widgets with assigned
bindings.
there was the situation where four directories contained jst two files,
of which three directories were aircraft related, and one directory contained
test code from Curt that might be better of in SimGear anyhow.
This is just a patch to move a bunch of files to new locations. In case of
local changes to any of them you can do the following:
move replay.[ch]xx from src/Replay to src/Aircraft
move control.[ch]xx from src/Control to src/Aircraft
move ssgEntityArray.[ch]xx from src/Objects to simgear/screen
In addition it has been decided only to use .[ch]xx files in all directories
unless it's contained within an FDM specific directory, in which case the
author is free to do whatever (s)he wants.
In this repspect the following files have been renamed in src/Multiplayer:
tiny_xdr.[ch]pp has become tiny_xdr.[ch]xx
multiplaymgr.[ch]pp has become multiplaymgr.[ch]xx
"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"
and text strings are filled in before displaying. For testing: the new
dialogs are available under menu -> ATC -> Frequencies, and when
communicating with ATC (' key). This isn't completely finished yet, and
will probably profit from some feedback from the ATC folks.
tower.cxx: remove redundant "if (foo) delete foo".
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.
this patch eliminates some cut-and-paste,
as well as makes some frequently used strings const static at the same
time. A couple of interfaces are decorated with 'const' on the parameters
that are such, in line with other such interfaces where const is used.
"NINE" changed to "NINER", to match ICAO practice and the current FGFS
voice data.
A fixed buffer, sprintf and a warning comment replaced w/ostringstream.
Alex Romosan:
+string ConvertRwyNumToSpokenString(const string s) {
this should be string ConvertRwyNumToSpokenString(const string& s)
so we don't make unnecessary copies.
it isn't there, this is a bug. Thus centralize the error message so that it
doesn't have to be repeated everywhere. Of course, the calling code should
still consider that a returned property node may be 0.
I found that all the current users of the companion
function, findByFreq() actually did assume radians despite the misleading
comment in the .hxx and .cxx saying it's degrees. I've fixed the
comment now, and no longer change the Navaids code. The new Navaids user
in NewWaypoint() is now passing radians to the findByIdent().
Note that along with fixing the comments in the navlist.hxx, I removed
an obsolete method findByLoc() declaration (there is no definition
anywhere).
CygWin/gcc-3.4.4 updates.
I replaced my cygwin compiler with 3.4.4, did a make clean of plib, simgear,
and flightgear, then did a make install of all three. With the included changes,
everything builds fine, and runs fine.
or data blocks) from layouter and dialog creator. This is required for
dynamically generated/modified dialogs. Parts in the XML file can be
hidden and turned on by the C++ code. Other hidden parts can be used
as templates that are multiply used. Hidden datablocks can contain
strings that are used in dialog context, that are easier to translate
or modify in the XML file.
Attached is a patch to add oil temperature to the YASim piston engine
model. This brings to life one of the pa28-161's otherwise 'dead'
guages. It's a pretty simple 'model' based on temperatures and warmup
times I've observed in the labs on auto engines and run through my
dodgy-memory filter. It does the job of populating the guage with
something plausible though.
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 have corrected a few bugs with the owner draw gauge, weather radar code and heat-haze effect.
- od_gauge.cxx :
corrected a rendering bug where the generated texture was only visible
from a certain angle or distance ;
corrected the search of textures inside the aircraft scene graph ;
- wxRadar.cxx :
the echo of clouds was lost when the pilot was not looking in the
plane direction ;
Using new gcc 4.0 I have some serios warnings about uninitialized
variables, that are used. I created a patch, but I have no idea if it
is possible to do it my way. Can you check this out please?
Erik: I've modified the patch slightly based on the contents of an older
version of hitlist.cxx. I think this is correct now.
modeling of a simple single vacuum system with a pump source on each engine
in a multiengine aircraft. The highest rpm engine takes priority for driving
the vacuum system.
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).
it for the B-29). The gear model itself has supported this always,
but there was no interface from the XML file. Should be backwards
compatible. I don't think I broke anything...
I have done a valgrind run in flightgear. Just start it up and close it at the
fist change I had about half an hour later.
source-leak.diff:
Also two minor ones, but leaks ...
I stumbled across two memory errors with two wrong const references to
std::string.
As I fixed that, I also moved aircraft_dir which is only used from UIUC into
UIUC. With that uiuc_aircraftdir.h is empty and can be removed.
I believe I have found the agl hud problems as well as the 'hole' in the
carrier's deck. I spent half the day to reproduce that problem, it did not
occure when you start on the carrier not does it occure with JSBSim and my
really often used testaircraft. So I really need to improove my helicopter
flying qualities.
I was under the impression that *all* FDM's call
FGInterface::updateGeo*Position(..)
so set the new position in the FDM interface. Therefore I had added at the
some code that updates the scenery elevation below the aircraft to *those*
functions.
Ok, not all FDM's do so :/
The attached patch factors out a function computing the scenery altitude at
the current FDM's position. This function is also used in those FDM's which
need to update this value themselves.
Also this patch restores the nearplane setting and uses the current views
altitude instead of the current aircrafts. I think that this should further
be changed to the eypoint's agl in the future.
The agl is again ok in YASim's hud.
Changes
=======
- acmodel.cxx :
we now have an optional new property (/sim/model/texture-path) that is used
as the first path in wich aircraft textures are searched. If textures are not
found there then the usual texture path or model path is used ;
This allows to replace only needed textures for liveries ;
- options.cxx :
added a new --livery=xxx option for the user pleasure ;
this will just set the /sim/model/texture-path property with /livery/xxxx
- od_gauge.cxx, og_gauge.hxx, cockpit.cxx, cockpit.hxx,
generic-instrumentation.xml :
added an helper class that contain a rendering context for glass instrument
or any other opengl drawn instrument ;
- wxradar.cxx, instrument_mgr.cxx, wxradar.hxx :
first experimentation of a weather radar ;
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
).
I've prepared a patch as suggested by Hans-Georg Wunder and Jeff McBride.
In addition I've removed the ability to completely leave out the integral
action by setting Ti to zero. The velocity form of the PID algorithm _needs_
the integral action.
Attached is a patch to the airport data storage that I would like committed
after review if acceptable. Currently the storage of airports mapped by ID
is by locally created objects - about 12 Meg or so created on the stack if
I am not mistaken. I've changed this to creating the airports on the heap,
and storing pointers to them - see FGAirportList.add(...) in
src/Airports/simple.cxx. I believe that this is probably better practice,
and it's certainly cured some strange problems I was seeing when accessing
the airport data with some gps unit code. Changes resulting from this have
cascaded through a few files which access the data - 11 files are modified
in all. Melchior and Durk - you might want to test this and shout if there
are problems since the metar and traffic code are probably the biggest
users of the airport data. I've also added a fuzzy search function that
returns the next matching airport code in ASCII sequence in order to
support gps units that have autocompletion of partially entered codes.
More generally, the simple airport class seems to have grown a lot with the
fairly recent addition of the parking, runway preference and schedule time
code. It is no longer just an encapsulation of the global airport data
file, and has grown to 552 bytes in size when unpopulated (about 1/2 a K!).
My personal opinion is that we should look to just store the basic data in
apt.dat for all global airports in a simple airport class, plus globally
needed data (metar available?), and then have the traffic, AI and ATC
subsystems create more advanced airports for themselves as needed in the
area of interest. Once a significant number of airports worldwide have
ground networks and parking defined, it will be impractical and unnecessary
to store them all in memory. That's just a thought for the future though.
I have prepared a new patch for multiplayer, which fixes endianess issues with
multiplayer code. It's basically identical to the patch I sent before my
vacation, but contains minor fixes.
Multiplayer should now be working under all unix-like environments and windows
native. The basic trick is to let configure check for endianess of the host
system.
It will not work on system not using configure in the build process (excluding
windows), ie. possibly MACOS. For those system we should provide #ifdefs in
tiny_xdr.hpp.
Erik:
I've updated the patch to use the Plib utils package for endian swapping an
used a preprocessor directive to detect endianess.
>> Hello List,
>>
>> I think there's a small bug in the moving-average filter in
>> xmlauto.cxx
>>
>> I noticed that the output from it was always out a bit and
>> checking with a calculator showed that it seemed to be dividing
>> by the number of samples + 1 instead of just the number of
>> samples.
>>
>> subtracting 1 from 'samples' in line 702 seems to fix the problem
>> and as 'samples' doesn't seem to be used elsewhere I think it's
>> safe. Possibly implies that the number of samples may be one
>> less than specified but I'm not familiar enough with c++ to spot
>> it.
Roy Ovesen:
You are right. I would suggest resizing input[] to (samples + 1) instead.
Change lines 654 and 661 to:
input.resize(samples + 1, 0.0);
That way we average over the number of samples as configured.
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
- replay.cxx :
corrected a bug, now reinitialize the recording data when replay is
deactivated
- fgclouds.cxx :
cloud layers and weather condition are saved when choosing a weather scenario,
added a new scenario 'none' so we can switch back to standard flightgear
weather
- navradio.cxx :
force a search() on init to initialize some variables, preventing a nearly
infinite loop when delta-time == 0 on the first update()
- electrical.cxx :
uninitialized variable in apply_load() for FG_EXTERNAL supplier
- panel.cxx, panelnode.cxx :
added a property "depth-test" for 2.5D panels so that they update the depth
buffer and are no more visible from the outside of the aircraft when the
aircraft uses textures without an alpha channel
- panel.cxx :
moved the computation of the instruments diffuse color outside the
texturelayer code since this is constant during a frame, this is a big speedup
for 2D panels
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.
- automatic detection of axis directionality, so that axis inputs are appropriately inverted only when necessary
- fixed trim axis names for better understandability
- fixed signs for flaps up/down property increments
- button 0 was previously used for skipping axes and buttons in both loops. Now button 0 can be assigned a binding (e.g., brakes). Instead, moving any axis during the button-assignment-loop indicates skipping.
- The user is now told how to skip a control.
I did some profiling of the code and found a few interessant things. Some corrections are obvious like the one in the multiplayer code, the fps is no more divided by 2 or 3 when another plane is on screen.
Other things like collision detection and computation of agl can not really be optimized. I changed a few things in hitlist.cxx but this only give a very low increase of fps. The groundcache eats a lot of cpu but I think that the real way to do it is to use a real collision system like OPCODE or something like that.
And I added an option to disable the recording of replay data. It takes more cpu than we can think.
Changes
=======
- panel.cxx :
moved the computation of the instruments diffuse color outside the texturelayer code
since this is constant during a frame, this is a big speedup for 2D panels ;
- hitlist.cxx :
changed the computation of the intersection between ray and triangle, optimized
the sphere culling by using a normalized direction vector. This can give a
35% speedup on the computation of elevation in some situations ;
- renderer.cxx, acmodel.cxx :
call ssgDrawAndCull with plane scene graph in external or internal view,
calling ssgDrawAndCull with the root scene graph was drawing other players plane
a second time in multiplayer mode ;
- mplayer.cxx :
removed the calls to ssgFlatten and ssgStripify because it was degenerating models,
causing a massive drop in frame rate ;
- replay.cxx :
added an option to disable the recording of the flight
- fgclouds.cxx :
changed the path of cloudlayer properties to match preferences.xml ;
set the altitude of clouds from scenarios to a more correct value if metar is not enabled ;
I have now included a patch to the multiplyer protocoll which does:
1. place the 3d model into the scenery using a placement transform which can
dynamically change its scenry center.
2. Transmits unique position and orientation data for the 3d model.
3. Thus breaks protocol compatibility.
Oliver Schroeder:
With help from Norman I fixed the alignment in the used headers.
But this patch again fixes only symtoms, not the problems. I suggest to
put it into cvs anyway, as it will enable the majority to get experience
with the multiplayer mode.
Turns out to be a bad interaction between jsbsims crash detection and my
past initialization changes.
The attached patch fixes this by moving crash detection out of the
initialization phase of jsbsim.
- 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
Changes
=======
- shadowvolume.cxx, renderer.cxx :
- reduced the polygon offset a bit to eliminate some artifact ;
- changed again the cleanup code for objects inside a tile because it could crash on rare occasion ;
- the culling of shadow casters has been rewritten to traverse the scene graph, it should be
a bit faster when there is a lot of objects ;
- the range selector was not correctly handled, sometimes the wrong LOD was casting shadows.
- added the option to display aircraft's transparent objects after the shadows, this will
reduce the problem of shadows being hidden by the transparent object (propeller disk,
rotor, etc). A side effect is that aircraft's transparent objects won't receive shadows
anymore. This is usually a good thing except when the aircraft use a 'transparent'
texture where it should not. A transparent texture in the plib context is a texture
with an alpha channel or a material with alpha <= 0.99.
- model.cxx, animation.cxx, shadowvolume.cxx :
- added an optional <condition> under the <noshadow> animation
- tower.cxx
- correct a rare bug where all occurences of the aircraft are not deleted from the
departure list causing a crash in FGTower::CheckDepartureList function.
Somehow the MIPSpro compiler doesn't like an STL map entry being called
using a variable when the reference is an object and not a pointer to an
object.
Preliminary support for a fontcache is added which prevents fonts from
being loaded more than once and takes care of freeing them up again.
The fontcache isn't used yet since there seems to be a problem somewhere.
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.
LayoutWidget::setDefaultFont() wants puFont* /and/ pointsize as extra
parameters, when puFont knows its pointsize anyway. Didn't want to change
that yet, though.) Now the HELVETICA_10 font makes actually sense. :-)
font similar to Helvetica/Swiss. The license doesn't allow to redistribute
modified fonts under the original name. While it's only a converted font,
and not manually modified, it can no longer be seen as original. Changes
so far are (a) conversion from vector to bitmap, (b) different empty space
width, (c) different & constant gap value, without other kerning information.
Further changes may be necessary in the future.
[new_gui is] "using copies of puFont objects that are not yet initialized, I
think that dependant of link order (and so tor execution order) it can
work or not. Changing puFont font by puFont *font should work in all cases."
hardcodes the text color as black, which makes them a bit hard to read
on dark backgrounds; fix sent to the plib list; (the added code isn't
pretty and hence fits the existing style quite well ;-)
colors from /sim/gui/colors/ into map;
- set default color scheme
- handle fonts
- implement color class
- close all dialogs on reinit, set up style again, and then reopen all
(non-nasal generated) dialogs again
generated by freeglut's genfont utility. That application also generates
a copyright message that I did not copy into this file, because it is
wrong: the author of genfont claims copyright for data that *I* generated
using his program; this doesn't fly. Of course, the copyright will remain
in the (heavily edited) version of *his* code. I'll commit that, too.
no longer save inaccessible bindings copies, but only pointer to the
bindings in the property tree (which was desirable to get accurate
error messages for Nasal bindings).
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.
- add <vrule>
- allow elements to default to foreground color (black)
- remove redundant if (foo) delete foo;
The rules do currently need a dummy child for the layouter to work correctly,
(<hrule><foo/></hrule>). The goal is to make a simple <hrule/> work.
on RPM via a model developed by Vivian Meazza. Add a "boost" output
to the property tree. Fix a bug where MP would be reported "before"
the wastegate clamping.
- use new removeChildren() to remove the named js nodes that we don't
need any more (they are now *really* removed, not just detached), and
- move it into postinit(). (getChildren() returns a SGPropertyNode_ptr,
so all nodes are refcounted and, thus, after the last sg/props change
no longer removable in that scope ;-) Maybe we'll need an alternative
getChildren() that returns SGPropertyNode* ...
- This doesn't do what the author though it would do:
if (modifiers&KEYMOD_RELEASED == 0) ... (see below)
- MSVC and type fixes
mf:
fixing this uncovered an old bug: the "key pressed" branch was
actually never executed -- always only "released". And that is why
the <repeatable> property didn't work. And *that* was the reason
why the Spitfire's starter didn't work with freeglut, and Vivian
had to write a nasty workaround for it.
Changes
=======
New volumetric shadows for FlightGear.
There is now two new checkboxes in the rendering dialog to enable/disable shadows
for the user aircraft and for static scenery objects (ie those defined in the .stg files).
AI and random objects are not handled for the moment.
known bugs
==========
- ghost objects
Annexed an IVSI (instantaneous ertical speed indicator), which bypasses a
limitation with Concorde :
- the cruise at Mach 2 must be with a slow climb rate of 50/60 ft/min
(2h from 50000 ft).
- with /velocities/vertical-speed-fpm, the real climb rate (altimeter) varies :
One must constantly (every 5-10 minutes) change the vertical speed hold of
the autopilot between 10 ft/min and 200 ft/min.
This is very annoying because not a constant offset : that could be a lack of
sensitivity of /velocities/vertical-speed-fpm (FDM ?).
This new IVSI :
- Is an emulation with works with environment pressure : a real IVSI works with
static pressure (with lag) + accelerometers.
It is not forbidden to later upgrade to the real model.
- Doesn't require a tuning of the autopilot made with
/velocities/vertical-speed-fpm (also tested with 737, 747) :
Concorde's autoland works without update.
block (this required to move most of init() into postinit())
- undo the "which" pseudo-namespace workaround, and do it proper:
- let all nasal code in a joystick config file be executed in its own
namespace. This allows to define functions in the init block that
can be used throughout the driver file, and to write state variables
in one binding, while reading them in other bindings, all without
having to make sure that the values aren't lost in between, or collide
with another joystick driver's code.
For this the input subsystem creates a namespace for each joystick:
"__js0" for joystick 0, etc. The two leading underscores are there to
avoid collisions with user defined modules (similar to internal compiler
variables). The namespace shouldn't be used explicitly, at least not in
releases, and not from outside code, except for testing purposes, for
which it can be useful. (If using the Cyborg joystick as js[0], you
can read the modifier level as "__js0.modifier" from any nasal context.)
- make it public
- enable handleCommand() to execute a binding (or other nasal code defined
in a property system subtree) in a particular namespace (-> "module" child)
These changes represent some attempts to bandaid and patch a hopelessly
flawed system to impliment basic battery charging/discharging as well as
provide the ability to model ammeter gauges and draw current from multiple
sources (like load balancing multiple alternators in a multi-engine aircraft.)
The system design forces all these things to be horrible hacks or depend
on extremely subtle system side effects and call ordering so they may or9
may not work to one degree or another.
As mentioned in the mailing list, my recommendation is to move away from
using this system and instead build a procedural electrical system using
nasal. Sometime in the future we hopefully can impliment a better conceived
data driven electrical system model.
to the joystick index (x in /input/joysticks/js[x]) both when initializing
nasal init blocks & whenever updating the joystick. That's the only way to
make these nasal contexts aware of the joytick for which they were called.
And that's useful if a js maintains common variables, such as modifiers or
state variables, that should be shared between the namespace-less bindings
and initialization code. And, yes, it's over-engineered ... :-)
its own data, and can distinguish itself from other instances of the
same js driver. This property is removed after script execution.
Example:
self = props.globals.getNode(getprop("/input/joysticks/this"));
(no need to list the paths explicitly in $FG_ROOT/joysticks.xml any more)
- move identified js nodes to /input/joysticks/js[0-9], but
- don't overwrite already set joystick data there
- remove all nodes when they aren't used any more
- add "id" node, which contains the js id that lead to the selection
of a "named js" config
- add "source" node containing the path of the used js config file
- execute all nasal script groups at initialization time
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.
this is basically the past patch I sent to the list and which should now
really (...!?!?) fix the no ground below aircraft problem.
Reasons:
I understood my remaining thinko I introduced with the prevous patch, and the
same thinko I made in my test cases.
The feedback from the list told me that it should help.
2.
I made YASim query the the ground cache at the wrong place. This one fixed
this, one can now land the bo105 on top of the oracle buildings :)
3.
Is a followup of the scenery center update code: Register the scenery center
transform at the time it is put into the scene graph not at creation time.
4.
I held that part back from the past hitlist patch, because I hoped that it
will be sufficient (and the last one was in fact the biggest part) without.
As some test cases from Melchior showed me, it is not. We have additionally
to the wrong computed transform from the prevous patch some roundoff
problems. This patch adds some small tolerance to for the point in triangle
test.
... may be one even needs to increase the eps value further if starting at
some tile boundaries still fails.
5.
That is a big chunk.
Tested now for two days while hunting the second patch :) .
That is a partial rewrite of the groundcache to use its own datastructures for
that flat scenegraph in the cache. The basic advantage is, what Erik
suggested, to precompute some often used values of these triangles. Also
allmost all computations are now in double precision which should decrease
(hopefully fix), together with a similar tolerance for some point in triangle
tests, the problems with 'no ground below aircraft'.
I am playing with octrees for the groundcache, that will finally solve the
performance problem when high triangular count models end up in the
groundcache. This patch is also some prework for those octrees ...
It happens regularly during normal operation (ufo!) and only informs about
unfortunate, but known and deliberate behavior. The user can't do anything
about it, anyway. And finally: flooding the console with this message does
only *add* to fgfs' sluggish performance and makes every other message
go unnoticed.
Changes
=======
- correct the transparency probleme when old 3d clouds were enabled
(rendering context with an alpha channel)
- changed rain cone orientation, it can now be viewed from helicopter or chase
view (still not tower view)
- clouds are a bit more yellow/red at dawn/dusk
- weather data is now correctly propagated to the interpolator, this correct
visibility, wind, etc
- the 'metar' weather scenario now immedialty reuse the real metar data
- real metar no more overwrite custom weather scenario
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.
This is another update for the cloud code, a lot of lines but this time I have started to add the doxygen doc.
Misc
====
- corrected a bug when RTT is not available, the current rendering context was
altered
- if RTT is not available then 3d clouds are not drawn at all
- impostors lighting is now recomputed when the sun changes position
- distant objects are no more seen in front of clouds
- blending of distant clouds is a bit better now
- litle optimization of code (uses a less cpu time)
- use layer wind speed and direction (no more hardcoded wind)
- fov is no more hardcoded
Changes
=======
- clouds (cu only) are dissipating/reforming (experimental)
- compute a turbulence factor that depends on surrounding clouds and type of
clouds (experimental)
- clouds shapes are defined in cloudlayers.xml
- type of clouds present in a layer is also defined in cloudlayers.xml
- cloud layers are generated from metar and other misc. data (in progress)
- added a rain effect around the viewer (enabled in the rendering dialog and
when the metar property says so)
- added a lightning effect (enabled in the rendering dialog) : cb clouds spawn
new lightnings
- added a dialog to select from different weather source : metar/property,
a 'fair weather' environment and a 'thunderstorm' environment.
/sim/startup/splash-progress)
- a string in /sim/startup/splash-title is displayed on top of the screen
and by default empty
- the splash image is scaled down if 512x512 is too big
- code cleanup
in terms of predictable packing and byte ordering. So rather than trying to
get fancy and shave a few bits off the structure sizes, just go with 32 bit
ints for everthing which saves a lot of potential headaches in the cross
platform and cross architecture arenas.
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.
was probably my idea of a feature, but if the input buffer actually
does has a length of zero (as Melchior discovered for the case of a
zero-length .nas file) then there will be no null.
Changes
=======
- corrected some strange behavior when playing with the render dialog options
- the density slider is now working : if you are fps limited and still want to see clouds in
the distance you should play with that
- added the choice for texture resolution, its more comprehensible now (before it was
wrongly allways choosing 64x64 textures)
- changed the initial texture size : you now have 64 texture of 64x64, this uses 1Mo of
texture memory (before it was 20 texture of 256x256, that took more memory and there was
not enought impostors)
- sun vector is now right so the lighting is a bit better
- removed useless sort and light computations for impostors, this should save a lot of cpu
- blending of distant cloud is more accurate now
- clouds are now positioned correctly, they don't try to escape you anymore
- no more red/white boxes around cloud
- textures are now filtered (no more big pixels)
known bugs
==========
- distant objects are seen in front of clouds
- new and updated sources for the new volumetric clouds
- 2 new textures for the clouds
- an update to the render dialog to enable/disable and change a few parameters
for the new clouds
I have some small updates to the ground cache.
- Remove the usage of dynamic_cast where it is known that the result will be
non null.
- Renormalize the surface normal in double precision.
- Place the groundcaches center at the point it was requested not at the
scenery center. This fixes the problems with JSBSim's trimming together with
the ground cache. Now I am ready to commit JSBSim's ground cache usage.
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.
have a "property" mode as well as the original "binary" mode. The property mode
will allow the remote module to request any set of properties, and it will send
those properties each frame. The remote module can reply with a list of arbitrary
property name/value pairs to update on the FlightGear side.
This is a first stab, so it's not the cleanest, most well concieved code, but it
allows an external module (communicating via a pipe) to have a huge amount of
flexibility in the data in can access and update.
Make SDL window resizable; This exposes the same problem that many
GLUT users have: resizing up may cause a temporary switch to software
rendering if the card is low on memory. Resizing down again switches
back to HW rendering. (KSFO is texture intensive, but there are no
problems in LOWL, and elsewhere.) Less and less users will have the
problem as cards become better, and it's no reason not to allow
resizing altogether.
_course_deg is first initialized in the if()-branch (gps.cxx:419). But
this branch isn't entered at first run if wp0==wp1, so that in line 615
fgfs tries to SG_NORMALIZE_RANGE() a random value, which can take a
long while if the number huge. This was occasionally a number greater
than 10160!
- initialize all vars before they are used (fixes endless loop)
- fix some compiler warnings (initialization order, unused vars)
FGAIMgr::GenerateSimpleAirportTraffic() tries to determine the airport's local
hour from the /sim/time/gmt-time string, which fails, because at this time the
property is still empty. That's why I don't get ATIS at LOWG (where it is *not*
midnight right now. :-) -> use sg's get_cur_time() instead
- 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
showDialog() is careful not to create a new FGDialog() if a dialog with the
same name is already open (active). But at this point it is already too late:
newDialog(), which was called shortly before, has already overwritten the
dialog properties. This leads to animated garbage in the best case, and a
segfault in format_callback() in the worst case.
- GUI::newDialog(): Don't you overwrite properties of an active dialog!
- GUI::readDir(): You may do that, but delete the old dialog first!
(necessary for reloading the GUI)
- FGDialog::makeObject(): only set format_callback() with setRenderCallback()
if the property is "live". Otherwise, only call it once at construction
time. This isn't only a performance improvement. Without this the label
was growing until it hit the limit (256).
The previous message wasn't totally correct. Strings are now allowed, too. And
the pattern is now '[ -+#]?\d*(\.\d*)?l?[fs]' and *may* be embedded in a string.
There may only be one %s or %f, though. %% is allowed in the preamble/postamble.
(Yes, %ls is allowed, too, and treated as %s.)
Also, "end" is superfluous now.
Printing floats in dialogs with 8 digits after the comma is inappropriate
for most cases.
- implement a "format" property for "text" gui elements (a.k.a. pui label).
Number formats are set by strtod/snprintf, while formats on non-numbers
are replaced by "%s". Practical example in the upcoming material.nas update.
Valid formats regex: '%[ -]?\d*(\.\d*)?l?f' (IOW: the format must begin
with '%' and end with 'f').
# Nasal:
number = dialog.addChild("text");
number.set("label", "3.1415926");
number.set("format", "%.3f");
The dialog handling has been written at a time when only one dialog was
shown at the same time, and dialogs were shallow -- with only children, but
no grand-children. This makes finding a draggable spot on modern, dialogs
with nested objects quite a challenge. The patches fixes this, and other things:
- check full object tree on button press, not only the outmost layer;
and don't give up just because we are in *something* (which could well be
something harmless, like a group); only ignore a few, sensible objects
(we don't want to drag after a click on a button or into an input field)
- don't lose dialogs as easily when dragging too fast (it does still happen
if one manages to enter an editable field while dragging, but this is
a plib problem and I don't feel like fixing that now :-)
- don't "live"-update input fields while they are in edit mode
- remove some "if (foo) delete foo;" redundancy
popping up and crashing when the B-29 model is in use. This isn't the
right solution; we should fine the NaN condition. But it's harmless
and allows development with the B-29 to continue.
back, but forgot to put the same fix into the runtime code. Also
added some comments so I don't get confused again the next time I come
through here. :)
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.
a safe undersleep() to conserve cpu. Essentially we undersleep our target by
just a bit (to avoid the chance of oversleeping.) Then we finish off the
remaining time slice with a busy-wait loop.
Norman Vine wrote :
> Frederic Bouvier writes:
>
>> Quoting Andy Ross:
>>> * Hopefully in a CPU-friendly way. I know that older versions of
>>> the NVidia drivers did this by spinning in a polling loop
>>> inside the driver. I'm not sure if this has been fixed or not.
>>>
>>> From my experience, the latest non-beta Windows NVidia driver seems to eat CPU
>>
>> even with sync to vblank enabled. The CPU usage is always 100%.
>
> Buried in the PPE sources is a 'hackish' but portable way to limit CPU usage if the desired framerate is met
>
> /*
> Frame Rate Limiter.
>
> This prevents any one 3D window from updating faster than
> about 60Hz. This saves a ton of CPU time on fast machines.
>
> ! I THINK I MUNGED THE VALUE FOR ulMilliSecondSleep() NHV !
> */
>
> static ulClock *ck = NULL ;
>
> if ( frame_rate_limiter )
> {
> if ( ck == NULL )
> {
> ck = new ulClock ;
> ck -> update () ;
> }
>
> int t_ms = (int) ( ck->getDeltaTime() * 1000.0 ) ; /* Convert to ms */
>
> if ( t_ms < 16 )
> ulMilliSecondSleep ( 16 - t_ms ) ;
> }
>
>
I implemented the method pointed out by Norman. It works great on windows and saves me a lot of CPU cycles. This way, I can get the same framerate in moderately populated areas and have CPU idle 50% of the time instead of wildly looping in the NVidia driver while waiting to sync on vblank.
It has been tested on Linux by Melchior. He saw the same gain in CPU cycles.
I have added a --aspect-ratio-multiplier=x.xx option to give some end user
control over the aspect ratio. (This may seem a little strange, but it's a
building block towards the capability of doing asymmetric view frustums in
FlightGear.)
ssgSetNearFar(). This by default creates a symmetric view frustum which is
typically what an application wants.
However, to get control of the view frustum in order to build support for
asymmetric view frustums, we need to wrap these calls with a bit of our own
logic.
This set of changes wraps all calls to ssgSetFOV() and ssgSetNearFar() with
FGRenderer methods.
I also standardized how the FGRenderer class is handled in globals.[ch]xx.
This led to some cascading changes in a variety of source files.
As I was working my way through the changes, I fixed a few warnings along
the way.
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.
I've added some features to the PID controller:
Ability to set desired sampling interval in seconds. Use <Ts> under <config>
to set the desired sampling interval of the PID controller.
Example:
<config>
<Ts>0.1</Ts> <!-- desired sampling interval -->
<Kp>-0.05</Kp> <!-- proportional gain -->
<beta>1.0</beta> <!-- input value weighing factor -->
...
...
</config>
Ts defaults to 0.0, so if you don't set it it samples at the highest possible
frequency.
Add an offset to the input variables (input and reference).
Example:
<reference>
<prop>/controls/flight/elevator</prop>
<scale>-1.5</scale>
<offset>1.0</offset>
</reference>
Note that <scale> has higher precedence than <offset>, regardless of the order
that they appear in the config file.
I have made the
'Select Airport from List' option in FlightGear work
(I think) properly. I have some concerns about the
solution, which could be broken by changes to plib (if
they re-use the value I have assigned to
PUCLASS_LIST), but for the moment it seems to work OK.
Erik Hofman:
A request has been sent to John Fay to include the puList
code in the puAux subdirectory of plib so expect some
changes for future version of FlightGear.
RE: --aircraft=ufo in system.fgfsrc is ignored
To change a 'feature', one that has been mentioned here many
times, and again recently, place the following code block
into fgInitFGAircraft.
In its favour, I would argue this means FG can be run without
a command line, provided FG_ROOT has been set in the
environment, and that seems to me, as it should be ... ;=))
Perhaps the only counter, is that system.fgfsrc is read twice,
but so are others, like .fgfsrc, for other (local) options ...
or system.fgfsrc should .nt. be used for 'aircraft' ?
Here's again one of the more obscure bugs that valgrind complains about: somehow
the STL container classes manage to read out values before they were ever set.
This patch fixes that. This may not cause any harm in this case, but valgrind
seems to *always* be right about them.
The following patches to SimGear & FlightGear ...
- create an FGMetar abstraction layer, whose purpose is:
* provide defaults for unset values
* interpolate/randomize data (GREATER_THAN)
* derive additional values (time, age, snow cover)
* consider minimum identifier (CAVOK, mil. color codes)
- add rain/hail/snow/snowcover support on the METAR side
- add max age of METAR data handling (currently set to
- add support for an external METAR cache proxy server
- add CAVOK handling
- set missing year/month in regular METAR messages
- fix a small bug in metar.cxx (wrong return value)
rather than /instrumentation/comm ... we need to be a little careful here
because typically, a single knob controls power to both matched com/nav pairs.
explicit calls to shutdown_all() which was causing this to be called twice.
This could cause problems with some IO modules (such as attempting to close
an invalid file descriptor the second time.)
a seperate explicite call or the io channels will be forced to try to shutdown
twice which could cause problems for some IO modules (i.e. attempting to
close an invalid file descriptor the second time ...)
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.
Attached is a patched runways.cxx. This fixes the find runway nearest to a given heading code. This was returning the last runway loaded at a given airport, not the nearest runway to the heading requested (which seems to always be 270deg by default). I have no idea how this has survived unnoticed for so long - I think it might be because you need to start at an airport with a runway near to 27 and one much greater than 27 eg. 36 to really tickle it, otherwise the runway nearest to 27 tends to be the final one loaded anyway. Try starting at KARR with and without the patch and note the surface wind. This should go in before the release.
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.
I still work on getting the YASim models see the detailed environment
especially the carrier.
I have *forgotten* to initialize and to destruct the ground cache object!
Oooopppss!
The attached patch allows to put comments in *.stg files[1]. Lines with
# in the first column (and only there!) are skipped. This has no effect
on overall performance, but has two advantages:
A) possibility to temporarily comment out objects during scenery design,
(or to put other remarks there);
B) possibility to put marks like "# BEGIN" and "# END" there that allow
automated merging of local landmarks etc.
--
[1] actually, comments are possible now, too. But they aren't explicitly
handled and fgfs tries to parse words in "comments" piece by piece. Ugly!
[2] Idea by Chris METZLER, that I make already use of. I have a local
scenery dir for some tiles with extra objects, such as VOR/DME for
all of Austria. These are surrounded by "# BEGIN LOCAL" and "# END LOCAL",
and today I was able to merge the new 0.9.7 scenery with my locally
changed files. :-)
I've finished the emigration of the radiostack, and I've also removed it
completely. It turned out that the comm radio is completely implemented in
the ATC subsystem. I've changed the affected ATC files to point
to /instrumentation/com, but I guess that the maintainer of the ATC code
should decide wether to make it configureable, and how.
I also had to change some files in Network and Main. The changes in network
should be obvious, but the changes in Main were a bit suspect. The files
included radiostack.hxx, but they weren't directly depending on
radiostack-hxx. They were depending on other files that were included by
radiostack.hxx. I got it to compile, but I'm not sure if I included the
correct directly depending file.
For the data directory I changed every occurrence of /radios/
with /instrumentation/ with this simple one-liner that I found on the net:
find -name '*.xml' -type f | xargs perl -pi -e
's/\/radios\//\/instrumentation\//g'
Instead of me sending all the files that got changed by this I suggest that
you execute the one-liner yourself. Of course I can not guarantee that this
will work perfectly, but I considered hand editing to be not an option (I'm
lazy). I don't want to test every aircraft to see if everything still works,
I think it's better to wait and see if anyone complaints about broken nav
radios/instruments.
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.
I understand that the new hud/runway feature is still very experimental,
and that the search criteria for the active runway don't necessarily make
much sense. (We are searching for a runway on /sim/presets/airport-id
that matches the current wind direction best, and not the tuned in ILS
runway or something!)
Anyway: the new hud code completely denies the possibility of
globals->get_runways()->search() not finding a runway and returning false.
There's always a runway found at KSFO, but not so at e.g. LOXL, in which
case we are handing garbage over to sg_geodesy.cxx and find ourselves
caught in an endless loop in geo_direct_wgs_84().
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.
currently just returns a lagged normalized value in the range of 0-1 that
is proportional to N1. It's up to the engine gauge to scale to the right
range. This is for lack of a real model of these items so we can have
something to drive the engine gauges.
I have now split out the ground cache functions into src/FDM/groundcache.[ch]xx
Attached are the two files and the patch to integrate that cache into
FGInterface.
The code is nowhere used at the moment, the fdm's need to be updated to use
that ground cache. The JSBSim-dropin.tar.gz from Martins ftp server does this
for example.
The carrier's scenegraph is not yet processed to be visible for ground
intersection testing. So the only benefit up to now is that the api is set
up. Using this I can put the changes to make JSBSim work with that into
JSBSim's cvs. Also I aim to provide Andy a patch to make use of that with
YASim.
Use a suggested exit method as described in the SDL_Quit man page. (fgOSExit() is still uncalled in both fg_os.cxx (glut) and fg_os_sdl.cxx, which makes these functions kind-of useless.) The other changes are fixes for gcc 3.3.4 warnings.
directory and over to the Instrumentation directory and make them modular
in the sense of being able to pick and choose what you include with any
particular aircraft.
Aaron says:
I just got the virtual runway hud projection working on all views and
2D & 3D HUDs. It is working awesome(see below). I have attached every
file that was modified (hud.hxx, hud.cxx, and the default.xml for the hud)
and every file that was added (hud_rwy.cxx and runwayinstr.xml).
Just a quick overview of how the instrument works.
The virtual runway is projected by getting the "cockpit view" of the
runway in 3D and projecting the points on to the 2D HUD. Therefore, the
virtual runway will be displayed the same in every view. For example,
you can land an aircraft from the "Tower View" by flying the HUD. Also
if you're in "Cockpit View" and it is centered then the virtual runway
lines will perfectly outline the actual runway. I am getting the active
runway via the wind like done in the ATC classes, which may need changed.
Also, I made the assumption the view 0, in view manager, is always the
cockpit view, which may need changed as well.
The runway configuration file will allow you to specify a center offset
(x,y) and a bounding box (width,height). You can also configure the line
stipple pattern for the outside and the center line. For instance, if
you wanted a 0xFAFA pattern, then specify 64250 as the value. If you
want a solid line, you can specify -1 or 65535 (0xFFFF) and zero will
turn the line off. It also draws a runway indication arrow when the
runway is not in the HUD or it can be drawn all the time if arrow_always
is true. The arrow will point in the direction of the runway (2D) by
rotating around the center at a radius of arrow_radius. If you wish to
turn the arrow off, you must set the arrow_scale <=0. The arrow really
should be 3D arrow that points to the runway (or points in the direction
of the aircraft-to-runway vector).
Add some controls required for carrier operations:
/controls/gear/launchbar
should be 1.0 if the launchbar is lowered, that means the aircraft should now
be arrested at the catapult.
/controls/gear/catapult-launch-cmd
Should be set to 1.0 when the aircraft should be launched from tha catapult.
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.
systems. Fix a couple bugs/oversights.
- atc610x.cxx: Much code has moved into the configurable input mapper
(ATC-Inputs.cxx) and the remaining input massaging code has moved into
the atcsim.nas module.
We have decided that hardcoded initialization of instruments and systems is
bad. So we remove them.
Hardcoded initialization is bad because it can't be overridden from config
files or from the command line. We prefer to do it through config files that
should be, eventually, aircraft specific (*-set.xml), not global
(preferences.xml).
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.
The caption should already be set when the window is opened. This is
important for some window managers. (KDE's kwin, for example, can store
special settings for certain windows, such as "no border" and "always
on top". KDE uses the window title to determine if a special rule is
to be applied. KDE will be made more tolerant, too.)
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.
on the ground) -- this is based on some wild guesses, but it seems
reasonable for now.
The next step will be to give the compass some angular momentum so
that it does not snap instantly to a heading, and so that it can
overshoot a heading and oscillate.
After applying the attached patches (based on latest CVS) you should
have a new option available within your version that should also
show up using fgfs --help, the syntax is:
fgfs --min-status={level} --show-aircraft
whereas "level" can be anything between
"alpha","beta","early-production" and "production"
Of course running something like
fgfs --min-status=alpha --show-aircraft
should not return any aircraft right now, as none of the
current aircraft definition files in your base-package is using the
required
<status></status>
tag - but you can easily give it a try by adding something like
<status>alpha</status>
The tag should be placed as a sub-tag within <sim> - so directly behind
the <description> tag would be just fine and straight-forward.
As a result of recent requests, I've implemented the ability to switch off
aerodynamic stabilisation:
This has to be added to the submodel.xml files:
<aero-stabilised>false</aero-stabilised>
When false the submodel retains the pitch given at instantiation.
It defaults to true.
I've made an encoder and a transponder. The transponder gets C-Mode altitude
information from the encoder. These two might not be very usefull right now,
but I think they might come in handy when the ATC network gets going.
input.cxx allocates memory for js->getNumAxes() axes and for jsCaps.wNumButtons
or MAX_JOYSTICK_BUTTONS buttons per joystick. But it doesn't check if some
xml config defines bindings for more axes/buttons, in which case it writes
to unallocated memory and causes crashes. This is a real world example:
sidewinder-force-feed-pro.xml defines 7 axes, but only newer versions of
this js do actually have that many. Older ones (-> gameport) don't. The patch
drops unused and unusable bindings.
I've added two new debug log types for the instrumentation and systems. They
used to use the autopilot debug log, because I couldn't figure out how to
make new log types. Well, now I have figured it out. ;-)
This will modify menubar.cxx/hxx so that it exports the
entire menubar (from menubar.xml) to the property tree, so that it can
now be changed dynamically using Nasal's setprop() instruction and
afterwards running a newly added fgcommand to update the menubar
based on those changes using the appropriate menubar path within
the property tree.
By default the menubar from menubar.xml will be stored within:
/sim/menubar/default
Erik:
I have moved the loading of menubar.xml into preferences.xml and
made sure that the menubar is destroyed every time a new menubar
is created.
I think I found the problem in props.hxx. I have an exception when copying properties. An alias to a property that has no value trigger this exception. The code that generate that is in AIManager.cxx :
void FGAIAircraft::bind() {
FGAIBase::bind();
props->tie("controls/gear/gear-down",
SGRawValueMethods<FGAIAircraft,bool>(*this,
&FGAIAircraft::_getGearDown));
props->getNode("controls/lighting/landing-lights", true)
->alias("controls/gear/gear-down");
}
controls/gear/gear-down has no value ( _type == NONE ) and controls/lighting/landing-lights is copied somewhere.
Erik:
Frederic's fix was to change props.hxx but he has expressed his doubts.
For now I've commented out the line that causes the problem so we have more
time to look deeper into the problem.
cvs -z4 -q diff -u props.hxx (in directory I:\FlightGear\cvs\SimGear\simgear\props\)
Index: props.hxx
===================================================================
RCS file: /var/cvs/SimGear-0.3/SimGear/simgear/props/props.hxx,v
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -r1.4 props.hxx
--- props.hxx 19 Sep 2004 09:08:12 -0000 1.4
+++ props.hxx 21 Oct 2004 07:10:54 -0000
@@ -622,7 +622,7 @@
/**
* Test whether this node contains a primitive leaf value.
*/
- bool hasValue () const { return (_type != NONE); }
+ bool hasValue () const { return (_type != ALIAS && _type != NONE) || (_type == ALIAS && _value.alias->_type != NONE); }
/**
Don't overwrite user settings from config files.
fgfs had in any case set bump-mapping to false, no matter if this
node did already exist (because it was defined in a config file).
compilation without ENABLE_SP_FMDS defined gave me a lot of link errors. It appeared that symbol used by ADA was still in use in the HUD.
There is also a typo from Curt in instrument_mgr.cxx where he #include "kr_87.cxx" instead of "kr_87.hxx"
This is a patch to make display list usage optional. They are on by default.
Use --prop:/sim/rendering/use-display-list=false to use immediate mode.
There is also a change in exception handling in main.cxx and bootstrap.cxx
This is a patch to make display list usage optional. They are on by default.
Use --prop:/sim/rendering/use-display-list=false to use immediate mode.
There is also a change in exception handling in main.cxx and bootstrap.cxx
Instrumentation and systems are now configureable from xml files. The two
generic configurations generic-systems.xml and generic-instrumentation.xml
configures the systems and instrumentation as it was hardcoded. You can
override the generic configurations in a similar way as you override the
autopilot configuration.
I've added some digital filters to the autopilot. They are all low-pass
filters that filter away high frequency signals/noise. There are 4 different
filters:
1. Exponential - The algorithm is essentially the same as the one used in the
fgGetLowPass() function.
2. Double exponential - Two exponential filters in series. This filter has a
"steeper" frequency response curve. It filters "better" than the single
exponential.
3. Moving average - Averages a number of inputs.
4. Noise spike - limits the amount that the output value can change from one
sample to the next.
Filters 1 and 2 are characterised by it's filter-time in seconds. For filter 3
you have to set the number of input samples to average over. For filter 4 you
set the maximum allowed rate of change as [1/s]. Since the sampling interval
(dt) isn't constant we have to calculate the maximum allowed change for every
update.
Example of a double exponential filter with filter time 0.1 seconds, that is
1/0.1 = 10 Hz.
<filter>
<name>pressure-rate-filter</name>
<debug>true</debug>
<type>double-exponential</type>
<input>/autopilot/internal/pressure-rate</input>
<output>/autopilot/internal/filtered-pressure-rate</output>
<filter-time>0.1</filter-time>
</filter>
This would go in the autopilot configuration file.
I've also removed the filtering of the "pressure-rate" helper value, use the
new filters if you want to filter it! ;-)
As I had reported on 2004/8/4 00:02:56 ("yasim + bo105 + vrp + @#%$#@ == argh!")
there must be a bug somewhere in YASim, which is responsible for the Bo105
turning around the FDM origin (nose tip) rather than the CG. Some people assumed
that I was just another victim of the "view offset" illusion, but this wasn't
and isn't the case.
Maik Justus (the rotor man) has now supposedly found the bug in YASim[1].
Look at this code in FDM/YASim/Integrator.cpp:35--66:
erly known as trRenderFrame) is now declared as a NULL function pointer and ass
ignment of the proper function is now done in FlightGear (jpgRenderFrame=FGRend
erer::update).
a working state. I still see an anomoly when taking a screen shot from inside
a 3d cockpit, but external (chase/tower) views seem to work well. I also
added a property to control how many screen-res tiles are generated in the
output. Theoretically, you can now generate unlimited resolution screen shots,
or limited only by your disk space and patience.
Today I successfully generated a 20*1024 x 20*768 (20480x15360) resolution
screen shot. If you rendered that at 100 dpi it would cover a poster of
about 17 feet by 12.8 feet.
Good luck trying to display something that big or convert it to anything
useful on a typical PC. :-)
automatically generate config.h-msvc6 with the right version number.
This way Curt will pack the right file because it will be
generated every time he will do 'configure'.
split). If SimGear is configured --with-jpeg-factory, then FlightGear
will fail to build unless this function is present.
FIXME: this is very messy architecturally -- find a better solution,
like passing this explicitly as a callback to the libJPEG class
(SimGear should not have a dependency on FlightGear).
I've made appropriate changes to Readme.submodels to reflect the
variation of Cd with Mach number.
Spitfire.submodel has been changed to use the variation of Cd with Mach
number
Submodel.cxx has been changed so that the default value of Cd is the
subsonic Cd of a non-boat tailed bullet.
I've finished the variation of Cd with Mach number.
The calculations are only applicable to ballistic
objects, and then strictly one shape: non boat-tailed bullets/shells, so
I've put them in AIBallistic rather than AIBAase. For all inputs, Cd
should be the sub-sonic value, so bullets will need changing.
I've just posted a graphical analysis here:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/vmeazza/FlightGear/cd_mach.pdf
I'm attaching a small change to Andy's dialog.cxx that I needed
to make so that it enables XML/Nasal-dialogs to also contain
puLargeInput boxes.
The text will be retrieved/buffered from/within a specified
property tree, like:
<textbox>
<x>100</x>
<y>100</y>
<width>200</width>
<height>100</height>
<property>/gui/path-to-text-node/contents</property>
<slider>15</slider>
<editable>true</editable>
</textbox>
The calculation of submodel mass from weight has been moved from AIBallistic
to Submodel so that it is calculated only once, rather than on every
iteration as a present. The parameter <contents> has been added, primarily
so that droptanks will have the proper mass. It is the path to an
appropriate property containing a weight in lbs.
Care has to be taken with the use of <contents> because after a reset there
appears to be a delay in submodel instantiation (dt not properly reset???)
and the weight property is not always picked up before it is set to zero in
the key bindings. Slightly hard to explain. It works fine if FGFS has not
been reset though. There is a partial solution which involves the rejigging
of the fuel and gui nasal scripts, but there is still the visible delay in
instantiation to be resolved. I've nearly done the nasal fixes, which will
form part of an update to the Hunter only. I'll probably complete those
later today.
The value of rho (air density) varies with height. (Including the upper
stratosphere, ust in case someone wants to model ICBMs.) The standard
atmosphere is used (based on a sea-level temperature of 15 deg C.).
Erik Hofman:
I moved this code over the AIBase::update() so all AIModels can make
use of rho, temperature, pressure, etc.
I have added <Cd> and <weight> to the input parameters in the submodels.xml
script. Raw data may be used, thus avoiding the need to guestimate <eda>.
Eda remains, but should now be used to enter the proper cross-sectional
area.
Split up main.cxx into a program manegement part (which remains in
main.cxx) and a render part (the new renderer.?xx files). Also turn
the renderer into a small class of it's own. At this time not really
exctining because most of the stuff is still global, but it allows us
to slowly migrate some of the global definitions into the new class.
The FGRenderer class is now managed by globals, so to get the renderer
just call gloabals->get_renderer()
At some pijt it might be a good idea to also turn the remaining code in
main into a class of it's own. With a bit of luck we end up with a more
robust, and better maintainable code.
I had to reverse a number of signs to get it right. I took the opportunity
to add roll to the submodel so that droptanks will come off with the right
orientation. I have neither added the rotational speed to the submodel, nor
yaw, so if you release droptanks with significant roll rate or yaw angle on
the aircraft the submodel will not be quite right. Straight and level, or
nearly so, is fine.
paging system much more robust when position change is very rapid and sporadic.
Recall that we must load 3d models in the main render thread because model
loading can trigger opengl calls (i.e. with texture loading) and all opengl
calls *must* happen in the main render thread.
To accomplish this we load the base tile in the pager thread and build a work
queue of external models that need to be loaded. We never allow a tile to be
paged out of the tile cache until all it's pending model loads are complete.
However, when changing position very rapidly, we can quickly create a huge
backlog of pending model loads because we are changing positions faster than we
can load the associated models for the existing tiles. The end result is
that tiles that are long out of range can't be removed because there is still
a huge backlog of pending model load requests and memory blows up.
This change being committed allows the tile paging system to remove tiles
if they are out of range, even when there are pending models to load. The
model loading code in the render thread can now check to see if the tile
exists and discard any model load request for tiles that no longer exist.
This situation should never occur in normal operation, but could occur in
"contrived" situations where an external script was rapidly changing
the simulator position to then be able to query FG terrain height, and doing
this for a large number of points that are distributed across a large area.
The maths, so far, is now correct. Roll and pitch are now both in the
correct sense. The aircraft velocity is added correctly to the
submodel velocity, and the submodel is now visible when instantiated.
However, the velocity is measured at the aircraft centre. To be totally
correct we ought to take into account the aircraft's rotational
velocity. We have pitch rate and roll rate available, but not yaw rate
(small anyway).
