Originally Posted by chancesAU

Wow
Do you think you can you get this to work with an Atom CPU?
Send me stuff if you need some testing!

Max

If it doesn't work on a laptop it would loose much of its interest

I tested it on a quad core, but no doubt it will be working (or made to work) with less powerful computers.

Ben

is your application use ARtoolkit library ?

I'm very interested of your experiment with AR

Originally Posted by tazdevil

is your application use ARtoolkit library ?

I'm very interested of your experiment with AR

I currently use openCV because I already used it, but I wouldn't recommend it because there's not so many good examples on the internet over advanced topics. And some things I think are missing, for example I cannot import a png with transparency and just apply perspective and paste it on another image, I had to create a red mask and play with it to obtain a mask, and then only use this mask to paste it on another image. Or for example I can't paste an image on another one if the one I paste would partly be out of the first image. It forced me to pass through an intermediate bigger layer etc. Maybe on some of these points there are other ways to do it, but I searched a lot just to find that there are really not many examples. Or simply to do a deinterlacing, it's not included in the framework, and almost nobody has done it (maybe one person). Another example, it has only maybe 5 fonts, all ugly and I've found no way to use another font.

So if you plan to use AR, my advice would be to compare the several ones around before making a choice.

Ben

Originally Posted by tazdevil

I was thinking about this idea there is 2 years, but don't now how too ...!

very impresive work.

my dream was to change environement copkit in real time in flight by pressing a button

you can fly an oldie plane to F22 copkit, and the same too for heli, fly an airwolf an switch to Terry chopper in flight, could not be so hard to do with this soft



In my job , we use a derived version of the chessboard to calibrate geometry and blend several video projector to do big screen picture, its the same technologie.

once again good job

Of course it can be done, changing the cockpit during the flight, but I would like to make them really adapted to their target plane (glider / prop plane / jet like a f15). I expect more the users to keep the preferred cockpit and then activate / deactivate some panels at the press of a button (show the autopilot panel / show the power management panel etc). Well there are so many options, now I focus on an idea I had for the telemetry part, let me check if it works, and then be prepared for something never seen before on this planet

This is awesome- I've been asking Eagle Tree to have an option to pan the osd from view to no avail. This is way more than I was looking for. Can't wait.

Originally Posted by Moose2

This is awesome- I've been asking Eagle Tree to have an option to pan the osd from view to no avail. This is way more than I was looking for. Can't wait.

Flipflap! Here's an idea. Maybe Eagle Tree can sponsor you and we can all buy the results of your effort.

Hmm... Aside from the above. I haven't got a working copy of MS flight sim, but when you pan your view point do the instruments change perspective there?

If so, how did they implement it?

As a sim I never liked MS, but the graphics got better and better over time even if the flying felt a bit hokey. Funny that it is the sim of choice for heavy iron, but the light plane flying is less than mediocre. (to me, at least)

Pete

This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm just constantly amazed at the skills of the people on this forum and just when you think FPV has gone about as far as it can, someone takes it to a whole other level.

Originally Posted by PeteSchug

Flipflap! Here's an idea. Maybe Eagle Tree can sponsor you and we can all buy the results of your effort.

Hmm... Aside from the above. I haven't got a working copy of MS flight sim, but when you pan your view point do the instruments change perspective there?

If so, how did they implement it?

As a sim I never liked MS, but the graphics got better and better over time even if the flying felt a bit hokey. Funny that it is the sim of choice for heavy iron, but the light plane flying is less than mediocre. (to me, at least)

Pete

Good idea for Eagle tree, actually another company already contacted me, but for now I want to focus on the vision I have for this project and not to be influenced in my choices. For example I wouldn't like to make it work only with one proprietary telemetry system, from a user's point of view it would be very annoying. Notice that I have my own (small) company and can sell in direct anything related to electronics, software, rc etc.

I didn't play since a long time with FSX nor x-plane, but I personnally prefer fsx. But for gliding, I use another one which is very realistic for the modelisation of thermals, slope winds and waves ( http://www.condorsoaring.com/ )

In fsx if I remember there are two modes, one where the cockpit is a kind of 2D cockpit, very readable, and another one where you have everything in 3D, you can move closer from the cockpit, move the head on the left etc.

The virtual cockpit can evolve in the future, but in a first version I don't plan to recreate a full 3D cockpit with all shadows etc. Altough it's possible, you'd have to wait far too long before playing with it And I think the choice made here to have a photo put in perspective with all active needles and indicators will give a very good feeling of reality. I don't underestimate the power of the auditive environment as well.

Ben

Originally Posted by Moose2

This is awesome- I've been asking Eagle Tree to have an option to pan the osd from view to no avail. This is way more than I was looking for. Can't wait.

Thanks ! You won't have to wait very long for first version, but you can be a beta tester if you want it before everyone

Originally Posted by lovegroove

This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm just constantly amazed at the skills of the people on this forum and just when you think FPV has gone about as far as it can, someone takes it to a whole other level.

Thanks, but I think VRFlyer deserve better this sliced bread comparison as he just invented the whole FPV stuff years ago

This virtual cockpit is more going from a hamster to a cobbaye - mmm, I'm not so good at finding comparisons, if someone has another idea

Here is something new, about the telemetry.

Currently we have different products and principles, for example just displaying the datas on an osd, or sending it though a separate TX to a specific receiver which will show it on an LCD, or make a vario sound for example. Some people use the sound channel of the AV transmitter to send telemetry datas.

All of this is fine, works well etc.

But yesterday I suddenly had to test something different, an idea which just popped and I think is new for FPV :

Let's use the video channel for sending the telemetry datas.

At first it may sound strange, but it has a lot of advantages :
- no need for an additional TX giving interference risks, different range, consumes power etc
- very easy to implement - yes - I just made a first test yesterday in one hour, just had to add two resistances to the existing PropAway !
- very high bandwith, about 6MHz if I remember well, much more than the audio channel (+- 20 kHz). It simply means lot of informations can be transmitted very fast
- very easy to decode : no need for additional hardware ! if we use for example the last video line for data transmission, we can decode it by software, the same software that the virtual cockpit will simply decode the white and black dots representing the bits of information. This video line is a very small sacrifice, as most of the time it would have been hidden by the cockpit.
- enormous amount of data can be transmitted even with a single row. I first planned to use teletext standard, which was opening new ideas (directly display datas even without a computer), but finally the microcontroller I use is not fast enough for this. But don't worry, it's even better like this (next point). teletext sends 6.9 Mbps data on a serie of (hidden) rows. Here I plan to use only one (visible) row, so it can be decoded by software without additional hardware. If I send data at the same speed as teletext, I would have about 64µs * 6.9Mb = 441 bits per frame (50 frames per second) = 2760 bytes per second ! That's far too much for our needs, so :
- lots of redundancy : rather than sending bits as short as in teletext standard, "large" bits are sent : let's consider sending only one byte + some verification and synchronization bits on the row we use. It's far slower than teletext, which means the bit will not look like a pixel, but more like a line of several centimeters. We can average the pixels value on all this line and have made a very strong redundancy (it's like having sent 50 times the same bit, even with noise or interferences, by taking the average we have the correct value). With this choice, we have one byte per frame = 50 bytes per second, with very strong redundancy and verification of the each byte's value. I insist on 'each' byte's value, as other systems (like PCM) send a lot of bytes and if only one bit is false, the whole packet is discarded. Here we would just loose one byte, and we know exactly which one is wrong.
You see that if needed we can have a larger value, but I estimate 50 bytes per second suficient for our needs : most indicators will be happy with a 8 bits value, but let's say we use 16 bits per indicator. airspeed, variometer, altimeter, battery voltage, current, acceleration 3 axis, gyro 3 axis, motor rpm, helix phase, motor temperature, battery temperature, cockpit temperature, humidity, secondary battery voltage temperature and current, number of glitches, signal strength, speed, altitude, compass : this would be 50 bytes ! Just an example, but give an idea.
Well, then we would have to choose which ones need to be refreshed more frequently, which one needs more or less precision, we could use some data compression (sending variations rather than actual values, not sending non changed values) etc.
Well, I just made an error above : we have 50 frames per second, one for the even rows and one to the odd rows, so if we use 1 row in every frame we have used 2 rows in the final image (last even row + last odd row). But anyway, its only 2 / 480 * 100 = 0,4 % of the screen's height. Notice it's possible to use the hidden rows, and have no impact on the image (not having to sacrify two lines), but it would need additional hardware.

I made a very short test yesterday in one hour, just to add informations on the video by using two additional resistors. I just show the photo so you can see how a bit looks like, here it's with the PIC running at 8MHz, I'll make it run at its maximum speed (40MHz for this model), so we'll be using only one line. Additionnaly now I use C code, but for that small routine of the software I'll be using assembly language. With these two improvements bits will have the required size on the screen.

Hey, did you notice something ?

Any current OSD manufacturer could add this specific row on it's image to transmit its data to the virtual cockpit ! Nice for the users !

Originally Posted by flipflap

Good idea for Eagle tree, actually another company already contacted me, but for now I want to focus on the vision I have for this project and not to be influenced in my choices. For example I wouldn't like to make it work only with one proprietary telemetry system, from a user's point of view it would be very annoying. Notice that I have my own (small) company and can sell in direct anything related to electronics, software, rc etc.

I didn't play since a long time with FSX nor x-plane, but I personnally prefer fsx. But for gliding, I use another one which is very realistic for the modelisation of thermals, slope winds and waves ( http://www.condorsoaring.com/ )

In fsx if I remember there are two modes, one where the cockpit is a kind of 2D cockpit, very readable, and another one where you have everything in 3D, you can move closer from the cockpit, move the head on the left etc.

The virtual cockpit can evolve in the future, but in a first version I don't plan to recreate a full 3D cockpit with all shadows etc. Altough it's possible, you'd have to wait far too long before playing with it And I think the choice made here to have a photo put in perspective with all active needles and indicators will give a very good feeling of reality. I don't underestimate the power of the auditive environment as well.

Ben

I looked at Condor and it looks very interesting. I downloaded one of the videos and loved the sound of the glider picking up speed. Everyone talks about "silent flight" but I spent a lot of time in planes like Schweitzer 1-23's and being all metal they can be very noisy in turbulence. I assume Condor is for PC/MS DOS since they don't mention a platform. I am on a Mac but have an MS DOS partition so maybe I'll try it. They also mention using a force feecback stick. One of the things I've always wanted in a sim was realistic force feedback where the control pressures often get very light just before the stall. (at least on the plane I learned to fly, which I probably stalled for my instructor a hundred times.)

If you (or anyone) produces a commercial version of your FPV cockpit I hope to be one of the first in line for it. I'd love to duplicate your hardware and software, but realistically I don't have the time.

BTW... One of the rocket mags published some of my ideas and they suggested using the vertical retrace for telemetry. Obviously I never got that far. At best I had a small two deck computer about 75 mm square with the ability to interface with sensors. (from Circuit Cellar, Steve Ciarcia) All I ever did with it though was send a canned message at 9600 Baud to my Mac where my 2D line drawing (Fat Mac, black and white screen in those days) of instruments would move in response to the outboard computer. Work took too much time from play though and that is as far as I got. I still have the little computer and all its manuals. The manuals being five times the size of the computer!

Pete

Originally Posted by PeteSchug

I looked at Condor and it looks very interesting. I downloaded one of the videos and loved the sound of the glider picking up speed. Everyone talks about "silent flight" but I spent a lot of time in planes like Schweitzer 1-23's and being all metal they can be very noisy in turbulence. I assume Condor is for PC/MS DOS since they don't mention a platform. I am on a Mac but have an MS DOS partition so maybe I'll try it. They also mention using a force feecback stick. One of the things I've always wanted in a sim was realistic force feedback where the control pressures often get very light just before the stall. (at least on the plane I learned to fly, which I probably stalled for my instructor a hundred times.)

If you (or anyone) produces a commercial version of your FPV cockpit I hope to be one of the first in line for it. I'd love to duplicate your hardware and software, but realistically I don't have the time.

BTW... One of the rocket mags published some of my ideas and they suggested using the vertical retrace for telemetry. Obviously I never got that far. At best I had a small two deck computer about 75 mm square with the ability to interface with sensors. (from Circuit Cellar, Steve Ciarcia) All I ever did with it though was send a canned message at 9600 Baud to my Mac where my 2D line drawing (Fat Mac, black and white screen in those days) of instruments would move in response to the outboard computer. Work took too much time from play though and that is as far as I got. I still have the little computer and all its manuals. The manuals being five times the size of the computer!

Pete

Yes Condor is a very nice glider simulator, it does only that and does it well ! I don't think they have a Mac version, but didn't check.

The sound is very important, that's one reason I don't want to use the audio channel for data transmission. The vertical retrace can be used, or the several lines above and below the visible screen, which are used for teletext for example. But I've chosen to use a visible row so it can be decoded by the pc with any video acquisition card. This detail makes all the difference

Nice that you've been published ! A small computer could be used for this project, but I just follow what I see in my mind : very light microcontrollers in the plane, very low consumption, and major computing power at the ground station. (in my mind at least) it will give an experience extremely realist and immersive. I hope this system will be used for some world records attempts, and with this in mind the consumption, weight and size are very important.

A part of the project I'll discuss later is to be able to 'drive' a glider a bit like a car : the optimum speed for thermalling and for transition are automatically maintained, and the angle while in a thermal is chosen with the stick. I mean like in a car : if I turn the steering wheel 20° on the right, the car will make a continuous turn at a certain angular speed. Idem with this (future) system : you just choose the angle and the appropriate actions on elevator, ailerons, tail are taken to maintain exactly this angle. I belive many people are interested in gliding, but it's not always easy to find and correctly center a thermal while keeping the optimum speed. But well, this is for later !

Originally Posted by flipflap

Here is something new, about the telemetry.

Currently we have different products and principles, for example just displaying the datas on an osd, or sending it though a separate TX to a specific receiver which will show it on an LCD, or make a vario sound for example. Some people use the sound channel of the AV transmitter to send telemetry datas.

All of this is fine, works well etc.

But yesterday I suddenly had to test something different, an idea which just popped and I think is new for FPV :

Let's use the video channel for sending the telemetry datas.



Hey, did you notice something ?

Any current OSD manufacturer could add this specific row on it's image to transmit its data to the virtual cockpit ! Nice for the users !

You might want to check with a few of the equipment providers here and run patent searches on your "ideas" on some of this. You may find yourself stepping on legal toes and suffering accordingly. Perhaps you may even wish to talk to some folks in the industry that have actually already done what you are proposing to find out why it hasn't been actually put into market.

The Data Telemetry via Video is patented by ET and is how the EE works. Their system is a bit more refined but is basicly close enough to get you in a court room on the hot-seat.

Just FYI. Good luck!

Rob

Originally Posted by camship

You might want to check with a few of the equipment providers here and run patent searches on your "ideas" on some of this. You may find yourself stepping on legal toes and suffering accordingly. Perhaps you may even wish to talk to some folks in the industry that have actually already done what you are proposing to find out why it hasn't been actually put into market.

The Data Telemetry via Video is patented by ET and is how the EE works. Their system is a bit more refined but is basicly close enough to get you in a court room on the hot-seat.

Just FYI. Good luck!

Rob

Thanks for the info didn't notice this, but will be more prudent in the future Maybe it's possible to get an agreement with them, or pay a fee, finally this virtual cockpit can be positive for them as well.

I checked their website, they mention 'patent pending' but I was not able to find the exact patent number. did also some google search and sent them an email, but if someone has this patent number, thanks in advance !

Ben