Re: [Flightgear-devel] [Re] Buildings?????

[Thomas Förster]

Am Donnerstag 24 November 2005 14:38 schrieb Steve Hosgood:
> On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 12:20, Ralf Gerlich wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Buchanan, Stuart schrieb:
> > > Hi Steve,
> > >
> > > Apologies if I've misunderstood your answer, but I think we can already
> > > do this by setting the FG_SCENERY environmental variable appropriately.
> >
> > This is actually the way I'm using the Lake Constance scenery and it's
> > the way proposed on the Lake Constance Scenery Download site. It works.
>
> OK, so what was the original poster bothered about again? Sounds like
> it's all working as expected.

The complaint was not about being able to have customized scenery. The 
complaint was that there is no way of customized scenery to become part of 
the standard scenery. That way everyone could share the joy of nicely 
modelled local sceneries, not just the original creator.

I'm sure a lot of people here are willing to contribute their scenery 
enhancements (copyrights permitting), but currently just can't do it. This 
was the reason to create a Shapefile (being a standard format in the GIS 
communities) Scenery DB in the first place.

As long as FGSD has no support for these (or similar) formats, there is no way 
to merge different contributions. That's why Martin noted that FGSD probably 
MAY be a dead end regarding terrain modelling.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Realistic daytime skycolor

[Thomas Förster]

Am Dienstag 22 November 2005 17:06 schrieb AJ MacLeod:
> On Tuesday 22 November 2005 15:41, Erik Hofman wrote:
> > The skylight model we are using is also based on physical properties and
> >   isn't far off from the model you describe. That model however doesn't
> > allow for some of the cloud colorings features we are doing.
>
> Like in the dawn screenshot where I tried to show that off;
>
> http://www.adeptopensource.co.uk/personal/fg/747-Heathrow-dawn_moon.jpg
>
> > In fact our model still has a lot of potential left.
> > I wouldn't want to trade it for another approach.
>
> I don't know anything about the theory of it all, but I do know that the
> sky in FG looks truly amazing at dawn and dusk in particular (colours, moon
> phases, star positions etc) - and I think we are _really_ underselling FG
> by not having a few screenshots illustrating that on the website.
>
> I'm sure others can come up with much nicer ones than I have... they're all
> going to offend the "darkness police" whatever :-)

I think Melchior knows how to swap textures/materials at runtime. Probably 
it's time for fake lighted livery... In a Berlin building in Jon's Scenery 
Objects DB (Park Inn Hotel), I used a light emitting material together with a 
night texture (basically to darken the "shadow" areas) to fake an illuminated 
facade.

Maybe this technique can also be applied to the stabilizer to light the 
company logo. I'm sure this would improve your scene enough to pass Curt's 
artistic judgement.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] FlightGear Review (was: Which aircraft to include in v0.9.9?)

[Thomas Förster]

Am Samstag 12 November 2005 02:05 schrieb George Patterson:
> On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 16:13 +0100, Thomas Förster wrote:
> > A slightly outdated version of FlightGear is installed for Suse via
> > Yast and via Apt for Debian. For the newest release you have to
> > compile the source code yourself [1]. For Mandrake 10.2, Fedora Core 3
> > and the newest version 5.10 of Ubuntu packets exist for the current
> > release 0.9.8 of FlightGear. The packets may be found here [2].
>
> Last sentence of this paragraph should be "The packages may be found
> here [2]."

Sure. I was quite brain dead after having spent a whole afternoon on this. 
Must have slipped through the proof reading. Thanks.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] FlightGear Review (was: Which aircraft to include in v0.9.9?)

[Thomas Förster]

> If someone needs translation into another language, you might try to
> translate the web page using google translation.  www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en>
>
> The english language version is here:
>
>  user.de%2Fausgabe%2F2005%2F11%2F070-flightgear%2F&langpair=de%
> 7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools>

Google somehow only translated the first part into a very crude translation.
So here is a better one (hand crafted ;-), other German speakers can probably 
correct me if I am wrong somewhere):

Flying With FlightGear

High Above

--
UFO's over San Franscisco? With the free flight simulator FlightGear you leave 
this earth -- if needed in an UFO. Validate your free ticket here. Kristian 
Kißling, Jörg Luther
---

README
This article instructs you on the usage of the free flight simulator 
FlightGear and highlights its strong and weak points compared to its 
commercial competitors.

Despite the so called low fare airlines, flying is an expensive hobby. This is 
even more true for piloting a plane yourself. A (hobby [sic!]) pilots training 
costs thousands of Euros, a visit in a professional full flight simulator 
comes at 200 to 300 Euro. No surprise, a lot of flight enthusiasts turn their 
PC into a cockpit: But even for flight sims for your own living room you have 
to spend 20 to 30 Euro -- extensions like additional models or detailed 
scenery excluded. This sums to a nice amount over time.

On the other hand you can get the free flight simulator FlightGear platform 
independent and at no cost (Figure 1). Technically not in the same league 
like current commercial  competitors, it is steadily developed further and 
with lots of features seems to be close to reality.

FIGURE 1

((1)) A Cessna passing the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco in the free 
flight simulator Flightgear.

Check-in

A slightly outdated version of FlightGear is installed for Suse via Yast and 
via Apt for Debian. For the newest release you have to compile the source 
code yourself [1]. For Mandrake 10.2, Fedora Core 3 and the newest version 
5.10 of Ubuntu packets exist for the current release 0.9.8 of FlightGear. The 
packets may be found here [2].
To install FlightGear, you will need a 3D driver for your graphics card, since 
you will surely spare the bucking (TF not sure it's the right translation) 
without it. Install FlightGear via the respective packet manager.
The console plays an important role: unlike other flight simulators you define 
parameters of the program before the start. With different options you 
determine for example the start position, the type of aircraft or the local 
time at the departure location. A typical start line is:

fgfs --enable-fullscreen --aircraft=ufo --airport-id=KJFK 
--start-date-lat=2005:09:09:12:00:00 --enable-auto-coordination 

Now have a look to the single options: --enable-fullscreen turns on the 
fullscreen mode, for --aircraft you choose the UFO, departure aerodrome is 
John-F.-Kennedy airport (JFK) near New York.

---
UFO: One of the less realistic aircraft in FlightGear. The UFO is fast, never 
crashes and provides a handy way to explore the scenery.


Every airport worldwide possesses an ICAO code, which you can query at this 
website [3].


ICAO: ICAO stands for International Civil Aviation Organisation, which assigns 
airport codes to international airports.


Your first flight does not start at JFK though: FlightGear by default only 
starts in the vicinity of San Franscisco. Other regions of the world can be 
downloaded from the FlightGear Website [4]: How to install such addons you 
can read in the box "Extending FlightGear".

=
Extending FlightGear

The FlightGear  world is divided into 10x10 degrees quadrants. In the basic 
version you only get one such tile around Los Angeles, the rest of the world 
consists of water. With the right extension files [4], you get scenery for 
the rest of the world too.

FIGURE 2
((2)) If you like to fly to a new airport or region, first you must download 
and install the right scenery tiles.

The download of so called scenery tiles causes tremendous download volumes: A 
single tile comes at around 80MB; flightgear.org provides the whole world 
scenery on 3 DVD for purchase. We have put the Middle European region onto 
the attached CD.
The region consists of the four tiles from 0°E 50°N (e000n50.tgz) to 10°E 40°N 
(e010n40.tgz). Not only Germany but also Benelux, Denmark, the south of 
Scandinavia, large parts of France and Italy as well as the Balcan area come 
into your reach.
To install the scenery, copy the archives from the CD depending on your 
distribution into the Scenery or Scenery/Terrain subdirectories and unpack 
with the command tar -xvzf e0*. In a similar manner proceed with other 
downloaded FlightGear sce

Re: [Flightgear-devel] Regarding buildings (was Shadows)

[Thomas Förster]

Am Dienstag 28 Juni 2005 18:42 schrieb Harald JOHNSEN:
> Martin Spott wrote:
> >Frederic Bouvier wrote:
> >>Quoting Martin Spott :
> >>
> >>
> >>Look by yourself :
> >>http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=4&S=12&Z=10&X=706&Y=5191&W=
> >>3
> >
> >Oh, nice   I think we urgently need a way to inject user-submitted
> >landcover details into the process of scenery generation 
> >Curt, do you see a chance to accept geo-referenced shapefiles from
> >users ?
> >
> >Martin.
>
> Since we are talking about scenary generation... Has no one wrote a
> converter from Taxidraw output to .btg ?
> Am I the only one frustrated because I can not (simply) edit a few
> airports and use the result imedialty ?
>  From the terragear source I find it quite easy to do that, so if
> nothing exists I will write the converter.

Mind that also the surrounding scenery tile .btg has to be edited, because it 
has to contain a hole exactly fitting the airport...

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Getting an airport fixed

[Thomas Förster]

Am Sonntag 19 Juni 2005 22:36 schrieb Ampere K. Hardraade:
> On June 19, 2005 04:10 pm, Gerard Robin wrote:
> >    I have the same request LFPO is wrong: --> take off  point beside the
> > runway
> >
> >  Thanks
> > --
> > Gerard
>
> For me, it is the LFBO.  14L/32R is a dirt runway, and there is no taxiway
> connected to the ends of 14R/32L. =/

Taxiways are completely user submitted. A default taxiway layout is generated 
for airports without a database entry (taxiway parallel to runway, connected 
at both ends and the center to runway, apron in center). It maybe this 
applies only to asphalt and concrete runways.

Best option is to take Taxidraw, layout a nice taxiway network (preferably the 
"real" one) an submit your changes to David Luff. It will be incorporated 
into the next scenery release.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Getting an airport fixed

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 20 Juni 2005 10:51 schrieb Martin Spott:
> Gerard Robin wrote:
> > Le dimanche 19 juin 2005 à 22:10 +0200, Gerard Robin a écrit :
> >>I have the same request LFPO is wrong: --> take off  point beside the
> >> runway
> >
> > Oh yes i have tried with taxidraw, it seem only operate on the taxiway,
> > not the runway. I could not modify the runway start point
>
> There is no separate "runway start point", it is _always_ automagically
> placed at the beginning of the runway. The effect you probably see is
> sitting at the end of a grass runway that is being listed _before_ the
> expected asphalt runway.
>
> To edit runways please click "Edit -> Unlock Runways", to change the
> list order of an airfield simply employ your favourite text editor. If
> you like to change the order or simply understand the structure of the
> airport file, please have a look here:

Please not that changing runways is strongly discouraged, because they are 
mostly automatically derived from the DAFIF data. Usually the runway layout 
is not way off. Just giving the right runway on the commandline on startup 
should suffice.

Eventually the most realistic option is to startup on the apron (data for that 
should already be in apt.dat.gz). But thats a different story...

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] need help for convertion(importing) fron MS FS into Flightgear

[Thomas Förster]

Am Freitag 17 Juni 2005 16:13 schrieb yue xianf:
> Hi every one:
>
> any one can give me some hint about how to run the MS FS models under
> flightgear?
> I have searched for long time, It is said Wolfram's manual can help,
> http://home.t-online.de/home/Wolfram.Kuss/,this websit  looks something
> else and also is Germany
> I don't understand.
>
> I very appreciate your help.

Basically the site says that the original site does no longer exist. 
Apparently the hoster had changed their systems and informed all customers to 
move their sites. Yet their is no link pointing to the maybe moved site.

Looks like this link may rest in peace...

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Nighttime cloud lighting (was: today's 3d clouds commit)

[Thomas Förster]

IIRC NASA has a nice hires satellite photo of the earth at night. Maybe this 
could be used as a base "texture". This could then be refined with the 
terragear city polys. Just an idea...

Thomas 

Am Montag 16 Mai 2005 06:32 schrieb JD Fenech:
> Ampere K. Hardraade wrote:
> >On May 15, 2005 10:21 am, Melchior FRANZ wrote:
> >>PS: TODO for 1.0:
> >>- perfect weather   (almost) done
> >>- per-wheel gound reactions YASim: done;  JSBSim: :-(   UIUC:
> >> bah! - help system   (a bit unsophisticated, but) done -
> >> a/c switchable at runtime hmm   :-/
> >
> >Let me add to this list. =)
> >- The bottom of the clouds above a city at night should have a faint
> > orange glow.  The thicker the clouds, the brighter the glow should be.
> >- Moonlight.
> >- The global ambient should be blue.  This should be most noticeable when
> > at dawn and dust when the sun is not visible.
>
> As a general thought (speaking of the devil, I actually thought about
> the cloud lighting effect the other night as I was driving home, even
> though I can't really using FG due to superseded hardware), but not only
> the cloud thickness has an effect, but also the cloud base, and the size
> of the city which is lighting the clouds.  Large cities definitely have
> an obvious effect, and medium towns (medium being population 7000 or
> more) have a smaller, but noticable effect, as well.  Any smaller than
> this, and they tend not to have either the ground coverage with
> accompanying lighting, or the heavy industry which would have enough
> high-powered lighting to leave a "footprint".  For an obvious example of
> what I'm referring to, drive through a rural area which has small towns
> spotted around at a general distance of 5 to 10 miles from each other,
> with a large city or two at a range of about 20 to 30 miles out. Of
> course, this applies on a cloudy night...you'll see the difference
> between the small towns and the cities.
>
> JD

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Another fgfs enabled rating!

[Thomas Förster]

Am Samstag 23 April 2005 19:58 schrieb Arnt Karlsen:
> > Nevertheless we have way too much restrictions here in Germany, with
> > new ones  developed at an increasing rate after 9/11 (I'm currently
> > filling a "Request  for a security check" of my very own person :-( )
>
> ..huh???  This is so you can walk to 'n from your plane and preflight
> etc it at your local and other airports?

No, they just wanna make sure, that I'm not intending a spot landing in the 
next high rise (everybody would tell, wouldn't he?). It's just in a line with 
all the other "big brother" laws that came up lately. The only difference 
here in Germany is that I have to request that security check myself.

Hopefully one day they'll spot the error in the GA pilot = terrorist 
assumption... :-(

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Another fgfs enabled rating!

[Thomas Förster]

Am Samstag 23 April 2005 19:26 schrieb Arnt Karlsen:
>...
> ..how about re-doing your solo with --jgp-factory running, and make a
> movie? ;o)

Well I could tape my digicam to the panel. Though I think a 30 sec starting 
roll isn't that amazing... ;-)

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Another fgfs enabled rating!

[Thomas Förster]

Am Freitag 22 April 2005 05:07 schrieb Dave Perry:
> I passed my instrument rating oral and practical (check ride) this
> afternoon.  Five hours including the oral and ride.

Congratulations Dave.

> Thanks to the entire FlightGear team for a great simulator with real
> world applicability!

I really second this. I started flight school after FlightGear gave me the 
confidence that I could do it. The result is, that I had my first solo today 
(after just a bit more than 7 hours, think I'll need lots of alcohol to sleep 
tonight).

Nothing spectacular, after three patterns my FI suddenly decided to leave the 
plane and I did 2 more patterns, while he was collecting flowers for the 
photo... :-)

So also from Germany a big THANK YOU for the FlightGear team.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Another fgfs enabled rating!

[Thomas Förster]

Am Freitag 22 April 2005 18:33 schrieb Martin Spott:
> Adam Dershowitz wrote:
> > Martin:  Yes, in the US it is often done in single engine airplanes. 
> > There is a lot of single engine IFR flying here, so the rating is very
> > useful on its own, rather than as a step to other ratings.  It really
> > increases the utility of a airplane greatly when a few clouds don't
> > ground you.
>
> Oh yes, I understand the intention, as long as it's really focused on
> IFR flying - and I'd wish to do it as well.  Unfortunately in Germany,
> probably in most of Europe, we have to face major and in large parts
> unnecessary hindrance which probably will make the IFR rating
> unreachable for me  :-(

As far as I know, you do not have to have a multiengine rating for the IFR one 
in Germany. Both ratings are independent of each other. So nothing hinders 
you to go straight through... :-)

Nevertheless we have way too much restrictions here in Germany, with new ones 
developed at an increasing rate after 9/11 (I'm currently filling a "Request 
for a security check" of my very own person :-( )

> To be honest, I believe experienced people actually _do_ fly IFR if
> they have an aircraft that is equipped accordingly - even without
> having the proper license  :-)

No they do not, at least not for long time. On our way back from 
Friedrichshafen (Aero, Europes biggest GA trade show) we properly descended 
from FL 95 to FL 55, even at the cost of 10 extra minutes, because ATC didn't 
let us cross Nuremburgs D airspace.

The point is, as proper IFR traffic you can expect separation from ATC. Don't 
expect that as VFR in IMC.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Problem with airport ENSB

[Thomas Förster]

Am Dienstag 05 April 2005 20:26 schrieb Timo Saarinen:
> Hi,
>
> Trying to start the Flightgear 0.9.8 with Svalbard airport ENSB (78 15 N  -
> 15 30 E) the aircraft ends up to sea. I have correctly downloaded the tile
> and extracted it to correct location (Scenery/Terrain/e010n70). The
> Svalbard island can be seen east from the airplane. The other airports seem
> to work fine.

Sounds like the airport itself is missing. Is there a file 'ENSB.btg.gz' in 
Scenery/Terrain/e010n70/e015n78? Are the file permissions correct?

Cheers,
Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Dashes in filenames

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 14 MÃrz 2005 22:41 schrieb Martin Spott:
> Martin Spott wrote:
> > I didn't hunt for debug output this morning but I'll do that tonight.
> > My friend told me something like "FlightGear is broken, it stops after
> > selecting the A-10" - so I assume 'fgrun' works correctly,
>
> I was unable to reproduce after I reverted the filename change. I
> wasn't able to reprocude this effect with the A-10fl neither.
> Might there be an issue with this single "A-10cl-set.xml" file in the
> installer package which got lost (the issue) during renaming ?
> I'm aware that this souds a bit strange, but I would not tell this
> story if it actually didn't happen 

Problem with file permissions? Just a guess...

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Please use meaningful subject lines

[Thomas Förster]

> ...
> So please, if you find that the topic of the post doesn't find the subject
> ...

--- doesn't find
+++ doesn't match

:-)

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[Flightgear-devel] Please use meaningful subject lines

[Thomas Förster]

Hi,

with sometimes more than a hundred daily posts I'm far from reading them all. 
Usually I just glance over the subject, read some 2 or 3 posts from the start 
of a thread and then decide to ignore (or follow) it completely.

Having now found out that e.g. under the subject 'fgrun improvements' things 
like frame rate drops for specific video cards, enhanced lighting at airports 
etc. were discussed makes me wonder what I have missed in other threads.. :-(

So please, if you find that the topic of the post doesn't find the subject 
line, don't hesitate to change it. Probably in the form "Topic YYY (was: 
Topic XXX)". Or even better start a new thread.

Thank you,
Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] aircraft required to start

[Thomas Förster]

Am Freitag 21 Januar 2005 08:59 schrieb Frederic Bouvier:
> Stewart Andreason a écrit :
> > It seems this aircraft is required to start FlightGear.
> >
> >  > fgfs
> >
> > WARNING: ssgLoadAC: Failed to open
> > '/usr/local/share/FlightGear/data/Aircraft/pa28-161/Models/pa28-161.ac'
> > for reading
> > Abort
>
> This plane is required by the AI/ATC module 

Which in turn has implications for the standard aircraft selection *hint*

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] [OT] curve direction.

[Thomas Förster]

Am Donnerstag 20 Januar 2005 21:56 schrieb Curtis L. Olson:
> This is kind of off today's topic, but I have an unrelated question.
>
> Working in 2d space, given 3 points, I know how to compute a circle
> (center/radius) that passes through those three points.  Now I need to
> compute the direction of curvature of the 3 points.  In other words,
> moving from the 1st point through the second point to the 3rd point, is
> the direction of the circle clockwise (curving right) or counter
> clockwise (curving left.)

Just take the cross product of the vectors 1->2 and 1->3 (any 2 vectors will 
work, if you ensure a consistent selection). This should give a vector of the 
form (0 0 z). The sign of z gives the rotation direction.

Since this is a special case this simplifies to:

dx1 = x2 - x1
dx2 = x3 - x1
dy1 = y2 - y1
dy2 = y3 - y1

z = dx1*dy2 - dx2*dy1

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Announce v0.9.8

[Thomas Förster]

Am Mittwoch 19 Januar 2005 15:40 schrieb Jim Wilson:
> Erik Hofman said:
> > Curtis L. Olson wrote:
> > > I have finalized the v0.9.8 release and rolled up the source and base
> > > packages, updated the web site, and made the new files available on the
> > > ftp site.  Everyone should be clear to start building binary versions
> > > for their favorite platforms.
> >
> > FlightGear binaries can be found at the usual place:
> > http://www.1stweb.nl/~ehofman/fgfs/
>
> I'm building a set of binaries on top of Yoper and have been wondering
> about distrubiting them.  They (probably) will work (and I'd like to find
> out for sure if there are any volunteers) on recent releases of rpm systems
> (Fedora C3, Mandrake 10.x, maybe even Suse 9.2.  I'd like are suggestions
> as far as where these can be posted.  I just don't have the bandwidth here.

I can help with Fedora C3.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Replay mode

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 17 Januar 2005 17:50 schrieb Jim Wilson:
> Having just hit it unintentionally, I'm wondering if the replay key should
> be bound to a combo key (a Ctrl+key) or Fxx key?  It has pretty dramatic
> and sudden effect.   Making it the "r" binding not very good UI design
> (unless one is doing more replays than flying).
>
> For some reason I thought "r" was reverser.  It'd be nice to have "r" and
> "R" for thrust reverser on/off,  which is a binding that is as fundamental
> for the jet aircraft as the brake keys or magnetos are for the others.
>
> If there is consensus on this one change (not a discussion of the entire
> layout again please :-)) then I can commit a change or wait for post
> release. It seems that this as a non-critical UI-bug.

IIRC, there is a keyboard.xml in $FG_ROOT where you can define the key 
bindings of FG. So no code change should be necessary.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Scenery

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 10 Januar 2005 17:26 schrieb Christian Mayer:
>>...
> I got an answer.
>
> They told me that the ministry decided that it'll be a security problem
> if people could the the coordinates of objects and places easily and
> quickly from the BayernViewer.

The usual stupidity :-( As if it would make a difference, whether I can look 
up coordinates for free or have to buy a map, if I intend to fly a plane into 
something.

> So the alternative would be that I buy the map-data CD-ROM at ebay. They
> are not expensive (they are made for tramping and bike tours) - but too
> expensive for looking up just a few locations :(

I've the DSAT5 at home. Coordinates are rather crude though.

> PS: Does anybody know an online map service where you can get the
> coordniates?

For Berlin there is http://www.berliner-stadtplan.com

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Scenery

[Thomas Förster]

Am Donnerstag 06 Januar 2005 12:16 schrieb Christian Mayer:
> Jon Stockill schrieb:
> > While messing around with my scripts for inserting objects into the
> > scenery (it's now all database driven, with numerous datasets imported)
> > I decided I could do with a few landmarks. Here's a couple of views of
> > the first, also showing off the object positioning:
> >
> > http://flightgear.stockill.org.uk/models/
>
> This looks great.
>
> I whish someone would create such a scenery for Germany (or at least
> Bavaria)...

I've begun some scenery work for the Berlin area. I'd like to see some 
place/db where you could upload models and coordinates, which creates 
corresponding .stg files.

> PS: For Bavaria you can get the official 1:5 (or is it even 1:25000)
> maps and air pictures for free from the net. But they are only in pixel
> format (not vector format) and the UI isn't that great to do some
> "harvesting"

Really??? That's great. In Brandenburg they only provide it commercially with 
a tremendous price tag (1â per square kilometer -> 3â for the whole 
state 
Brandenburg)

What's the URL?

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 20, Issue 45

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 20 Dezember 2004 22:20 schrieb Jorge Van Hemelryck:
> ...
> 1- the Control app launches and communicates with FlightGear, the latter
> being for instance a child process (or fgrun could be extended to
> communicate with FlightGear in this way)
>
> 2- FlightGear is launched at the same time as the Control app
>
> 3- FlightGear and the Control app can be run independently

I'd go with option three. I see the FG core (the simulator itself) as an 
independent "demon".  Multiple 'control' clients can connect and interact 
with the FG server ('GUI', Atlas Moving Map, Flight Tutor*, Flight 
logger, ...). We might need a locking mechanism to have only 1 client writing 
properties though.

* some future app that gives remarks on flight performance, i.e. "Give 
attention to engine rpm", "More left rudder" (just an idea :-))

> ...
> What is already clear is that FlightGear should not depend on this
> Control app. It must be possible to run FlightGear from the command-line
> without anything else. That is why I would be in favor of option 3.

+1 

> Here is what is already possible with what we presently have. The
> FlightGear telnet protocol allows an external program to get and set
> properties. This already allows for environment / position / time /
> radio / gps / view settings, to name a few.
>
> The current gui (menubar) can do more than that, and in the future it
> would probably a good thing to use the same API, in order for instance
> to be able to launch a nasal command from the Control app.

That's a definite goal, to have a clean API to the simulator core, which is 
used by an internal as well as an external GUI.

> As we said before, the main problem would be to change aircraft (and
> therefore reinit FDM, 3D model, systems) without restarting FG. I'll try
> and have a look at the initialization code as soon as I find some time.

Great.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 20, Issue 45

[Thomas Förster]

Am Montag 20 Dezember 2004 13:08 schrieb Curtis L. Olson:
> Jon Stockill wrote:
> > Thomas Förster wrote:
> ...
> For what it's worth, I think that some sort of minimal built in gui for
> FG is still a good idea.  FG already provides a lot of support for
> developing an external gui (i.e. for an operator/instructor station.)
> I have done exactly this for the ATC flight sim single engine trainer
> and it works quite well.

Is there documentation on this (writing external UI's) somewhere?

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 20, Issue 45

[Thomas Förster]

> The only issue is that for single PC, home users who aren't immensely
> computer savey, starting up multiple apps concurrently can be a bit
> tricky ... especially in a multiplatform / portable context.

Wrap that in a script/launcher app/... KDE starts some 10-15 apps/demons on 
initialization, the whole Gnome desktop is based on networked components 
(CORBA). Yet both aren't normally counted as apps that aren't friendly to the 
end user.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Re: Flightgear-devel Digest, Vol 20, Issue 45

[Thomas Förster]

> Here are a few ideas:
>
> - we could extend fgrun (to add such features as flight planning, AI
> objects editing),
>
> - we could create another app, which would be meant to communicate with
> FlightGear in realtime (probably via the telnet interface), something
> more elaborate than the http interface, in the same way that fgrun does
> for command-line options

I also thought about this as an option for a GUI. The main advantage would be 
that this approach ensures there's no GUI code in FG and there is a well 
designed API/Protocol to it. Writing alternative GUI's should be easy using 
that API/Protocol. Having the GUI seperated also makes it easy to distribute 
the apps across machines, i.e. having a simulator with an instructors 
workplace (changing weather, fail engines...)

> - in any case, it would be best to make sure that FG is able to change
> aircraft (FDM, 3D model, systems) on the fly, because that is probably
> the only start-up-time setting that can't be changed so far once
> FlightGear is running.

That would be a great improvement.

Having spend most of the weekend trying to install CVS versions of all the FG 
dependencies I only spent a few hours designing a new order/labeling in the 
menu (using QT Designer just because it's a graphical UI Designer). From that 
I think easy improvements  can be made just by renaming things. For example 
the difference between 'Adjust view distance' and 'Adjust LOD ranges' is not 
obvious. It's only after you click one you notice it was the wrong :-)

Thomas

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[Flightgear-devel] GUI Improvements was: Things to do to improve Flightgear

[Thomas Förster]

Am Donnerstag 16 Dezember 2004 18:45 schrieb Christian Mayer:
> ...[other GUIs besides PUI
>
> Well, I don't think that replacing PUI has a high priority.

Thats probably right.

> I doesn't look that bad (but doesn't mirror the OS style). And it get's
> drawn by OpenGL with a low overhead.
>
> So we should improve the underlaying functionality first, bevore we
> consider exchanging PUI.

I see it as an opportunity for me to step in, because GUI code should be 
fairly trivial, i.e. independent of domain knowledge.

> ...[multiple fg guis]...
> This sounds like unlimited resources where you can afford the luxurity
> to code a GNOME, as Qt, a Windows, a MacOS, a [...] interface...

This was just the vision. The actual steps to get there might differ :-)

But these toolkits provide more or less the same functionality, so translating 
the FG GUI to any one of them should be straight forward. I can help out with 
QT, maybe there are others who can do that for a GTK based solution, etc.

> A Qt only interface sounds good - but Qt isn't free for Windows (you'll
> only get an 30 day evaluation copy IIRC), so we can't use it :(

That's the point why I opt for having multiple GUI implementations. I can't 
use the native Windows solution here on Linux, with QT it's the other way 
round. Most of the cross platform available toolkits are either ugly or hard 
to develop with. Going for an own GUI toolkit for plib is even more 
demanding.

So giving the user a choice is probably the best way to go, i.e. using a 
QT-based one on Linux, a native Windows GUI on Windows, no GUI at all in a 
real simulator setting.

Think I'll try to prototype something this weekend.

Thomas

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] Things to do to improve Flightgear

[Thomas Förster]

Am Mittwoch 15 Dezember 2004 14:48 schrieb Oliver C.:
> On Wednesday 15 December 2004 07:35, Paul Surgeon wrote:
> > I hope we either drop PUI (plib's UI) or at least do a major upgrade to
> > it. We use PUI in the menus at the moment and in my opinion the widgets
> > look absolutely GHASTLY.
>
> What could we use instead of PUI?
> What gui library uses OpenGL?

For integration with existing desktops it's possibly best to use their native 
libs. QT for example provides an OpenGL widget, so all of the gui (menu, 
dialogs) could be native QT Widgets.

Also if the sim runs in the context of a GUI it will be easy to switch between 
them at startup, i.e. 'fgfs --gui-gnome' runs a GTK based GUI, whereas 'fgfs 
--gui-qt' runs a qt based one.

Don't know about possible performance issues, though. :-(

Thomas

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