Immersive Calibration Pro........HELP.

[Flying_Fox]

As I said earlier, I am doing a week of maintenance and upgrades before I launch into my "No Visa Required" American/Canadian Tour.

Frank

Frank, I guess you mean the flight tour in your 737?
I am planning the real tour to Brisbane in June, so we could do some flying together

Nick

[Caflyt]

Is there a way in P3d to have the sim ONLY use the projectors with Immersive Display Pro and still have an extra monitor which is ignored by P3d to show all background programs?
I have been struggling to set up such a configuration. I am currently using one main computer for the sim and visuals on  2 projectors, 180* wrap and a third non-warped monitor to display the desktop and background programs.
The problem is that P3d keeps trying to use the third monitor along with the projectors. I have tried editing the displays.cfg but no joy.
The view on the projectors with immersive display is fine but the third monitor is also displaying another forward view. I tried changing the monitor to "panel only" but that produces some unwanted behavior like my mouse cursor disappears and the frame rates drop a bit.
Anyone doing something similar with Immersive display?

[navymustang]

Please tell us the video card configuration you have and if you are using Nvidia or Radeon windowing of any kind for the out the window display going to Immersive.

[Flying_Fox]

The view on the projectors with immersive display is fine but the third monitor is also displaying another forward view.

I actually find this view (I set it to just 1024x768) quite convenient. I use it for the P3D menu (through Alt+Enter when neccesary)  and other programs are showing in that monitor too.

[Caflyt]

I have a 980Ti
PJ-1 connected to HDMI
PJ-2 connected to DisplayPort with HDMI adapter
Monitor connected to DVI-D

Immersive display configured on displays 2&3 with nvidia setup as "extend these displays" per Fly-Elise instructions. Each display is setup as 1 projector in Immersive display and the monitor is set as "no projector" then I run the Calibration-Pro software and calculate multi-frustum and output those files to Display-Pro and select "external calibration" for each PJ display. When I fire up P3d the monitor also displays a forward view in addition to the warped and blended view on the PJ's.

Does that make sense?

Thanks!!!!!!!

Craig

The monitor is still trying to be used by P3d for some reason.
In one of my tests a while back I was able to get the extra monitor to display only a black "desktop" and then unticked the "black out desktop" in the graphics section of P3d and it worked but something changed in my fiddling with the warp and blending alignment and now cannot recreate that setup. I'm not sure how I got there in the first place.

[brianwilliamson]

Frank...........let me know how the blending went with you new re-cal. I am using a Laser from Bunnings to level all the screens, which is very easy.

I am still finding it hard to get a decent blend. I would be interested from anyone else running the Optoma GT 1280 projectors, what settings they are using.

My Optoma setup is:
Display Mode ........Bright
Brilliant Color.........10
Lamp Mode ............Bright
Gamma..................Standard

All the other Display Modes seem way too dark, so wondering if everyone else is seeing this as well.

One major question for the blending is, does anyone know how to get a picture from the actual P3D into the 3 projectors so we can use that to correct the blending.

...........Brian W.

[brianwilliamson]

Well another nice little trick from Immersive Display Pro ( Should be called Amateur) is that as had been suggested that to do a job on the blending I would try Display instead of Immersive Calibration and follow the latest Manual.

Well have a look on page 33 of the Immersive Display manual and then compare that to the picture I just took of it on my screen. None of the Flip rotate are there, the actual screens I brought up were not lined up as you can see and there is no way of moving the control points that I could find.

So as far as I can see no way can you get a blending result from this. As it also appears to be a waste of time trying to get any information from Nikola.

............Brian W

[FredK]

Brian

Have you explored clicking on the menu tabs for the window that you have open in the photo?  Under one of those you will find blending parameter and slopes that you can play with.  I am not at home right now so I cannot give you exact guidance instructions.

Fred K

[brianwilliamson]

First trick is to get the colours to match on each projector. At this stage I can move the slopes etc., ok.

The problem I am finding is that the control points only seem to move in one direction therefore I am not able to line the colour patterns up correctly.

It seems that the latest upgrade of Immersive Display does not match the PDF Manual.

The other factor is that I am unable to insert different pictures across 3 screens to get a better idea of the blending.

..........Brian W.

[Nat Crea]

Brian,

Don't give up, but don't kill yourself yourself over colour matching.
It is the single hardest part of any visual system, harder then geometry and blending.
3 consumer type projectors will never match 100%, although they should be relatively "close".
If you haven't already, make sure ALL the colour* and bright/contrast/gamma settings are identical first before tweaking colours*.

Blending control points only work Left to Right and vice versa, so Im not sure what else you want them to do.
There are variables within each blend zone for fine tuning slope/gamma etc.

Nat

*color = colour Downunder

[ammarmalhas]

Just wanted to say thank u all. Very enriching discussion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[brianwilliamson]

Thanks Nat for the good advice. I think I have discovered where the problem is.

I am using a screen paint called Black Widow which tends to dull the brightness a little which is what it was designed to do for rooms with a lighting problem, which works fine if that is applicable.

Therefore I have been using the brightest modes available. What this is doing is lighting up each side of the blended area which I am unable to cancel out.

So I have gone to a duller mode and this seems to cure the problem of the bright areas.

I then think I should re-paint the screens with a ceiling white.

Will update further when I do some more work on the problem, which maybe of benefit to others.

...............Brian W.

[FredK]

Brian

Try deleting the contents of your "shaders" file.  P3D will rebuild it when it launches.  Sometimes that can make a big difference in brightness, particularly if you have added a bunch of scenery add-ons.  I do that periodically as basic maintenance.

Fred K

[tennyson]

Couple of really salient points here, bought up by Nat.

I learned the hard way, that you do not calibrate your displays (for colour matching) within Nvidia Settings panel.
It really does an excellent job, but next time you update Nvidia...it's gone, no way to save between updates.

I read somewhere that you need to keep your Contrast low, as this helps with the night time blend, so I tried it and it worked.

I'll have a look what my visual settings are on my GT 1080's Brian and we'll compare.

As far as the blend and merge go, the re-cal I just did, Brian, is the best I've done yet....haha sneaky, I actually saw that on Nat's site, but don't tell him...

I did my output files, but as for putting them into the view groups...mama mia, what a horrible piece of software.
I installed the output view group files into P3D and they come up in P3d, under view groups, but as to how I get them to operate from there....I re-read these comments from Fred, but I'm a little lost.

So, I went back and re-read the latest manual about another 4000 times, (don't want to exaggerate too much), but I am still none the wiser.

I'll be back to it tomorrow and hopefully figure it out.


Frank

[brianwilliamson]

I just re-did mine as well....................success !

First trick is to make sure all 3 projectors are the same settings.

BIG TRAP................Doing the settings on number 3 projector and inadvertently Number 1 projector picks up the Kryptonite rays from the remote pointed at number 3..............if that goes un-noticed it will lead to all sorts of troubles as I found out.

The new blend is the best so far, but still on some areas is a little on the bright side, so again the need to keep the overall brightness down a shade.

Frank I agree it is the worst instruction PDF I have seen. Fred's help was 100%.
When you copy and paste the 3 different multi.procalib to each computer into the Immersive Display folders, then backup the original ViewGroups.xml in each of the 3 computers In the C:\Program Data/Lockheed Martin/P3dv3..................then put the new ViewGroups.xml into each of the above folders.

The next part is confusing, but it does not seem to require as much as indicated, which seems to go when you do a re-start, I found, in P3D.

................Brian W

[ammarmalhas]

I have a 980Ti
PJ-1 connected to HDMI
PJ-2 connected to DisplayPort with HDMI adapter
Monitor connected to DVI-D

Immersive display configured on displays 2&3 with nvidia setup as "extend these displays" per Fly-Elise instructions. Each display is setup as 1 projector in Immersive display and the monitor is set as "no projector" then I run the Calibration-Pro software and calculate multi-frustum and output those files to Display-Pro and select "external calibration" for each PJ display. When I fire up P3d the monitor also displays a forward view in addition to the warped and blended view on the PJ's.

Does that make sense?

Thanks!!!!!!!

Craig

The monitor is still trying to be used by P3d for some reason.
In one of my tests a while back I was able to get the extra monitor to display only a black "desktop" and then unticked the "black out desktop" in the graphics section of P3d and it worked but something changed in my fiddling with the warp and blending alignment and now cannot recreate that setup. I'm not sure how I got there in the first place.

Craig,
Try connecting the LCD monitor to the internal VGA on your MOBO.
This is what I do and P3D ignores it completely. I have 3 projectors on my GTX card and one LCD on my MOBO VGA card and I cannot live without the LCD!
When you do the connection the display ID numbers will change and if you are using ViewGroup in P3D, you need to renumber the DisplayIDs in the View Management section.

Ammar

[ammarmalhas]

Brian,

Sorry to hijack your topic but I have a quick question which has to do with Immersive Calibration and Display Pro, and all the gurus are reading this topic, so please excuse me:

I have 3 Optoma GT1080 projectors with a 2.5m radius screen. My Optoma's are now placed at around 2.8-2.9cm from the screens so that I get full coverage of all screen parts with the projector beams.
My problem is I am using a 4 column overlap between the projectors when each projector covers 15-16 columns, that is about %25-%28 overlap which I read is supposed to be better than a small overlap!
This setup is causing problems with calibration and getting the lines and points to truly align especially with pixels looking as big as 3x3mm if not more! Lines and points really look jagged and very rough and it is ridiculous  trying to align lines that look like ladders!
I am also getting a very bad blend over this wide area, so I am thinking of moving all projectors inwards and at distances closer to the screen at around 2-2.1m. I think this may give me a crispier image (smaller pixel sizes as I get closer to the screen) and I will lower the projector overlaps to around 2 or even 1 column (32cm).

In my cockpit the projectors are throwing at 2.8m from the screen but I am looking at the side screens from about 2m away and I can see the pixels! i cannot read any Taxi way markings and there is no way to focus them, the resolution of 1980x1080 on such large screens is simply not enough!

So, any advice before I go ahead and start this messy process?

Is there any "rule" as to what the pixel size should be for an acceptable image? I mean when I see pixels that are 3x3 or 4x4 mm whatever they draw will look blurry and unnatural if you are close to the screen! We know that the smaller monitors give a "clearer" image even at lower resolution.

Thank you.
Ammar

[brianwilliamson]

Gooday Amar........ok you should be close at those figures. Mine are as follow just to give you some comparison:

Screen radius............2.3 M
Height of screen.........2.0M
Projector to screen......2.2M
Overlap each screen....370mm
Uses 30 lines.
Middle screen covers....3050mm
side screens cover........2975mm
Height of screen projection....1725mm

Now with those settings you will only just see pixels if you are lucky, on the left hand seat looking left.

That is as good as you can get at 1020p and I am certain you should have very readable signs at that size. Mine certainly are.

Hope that helps...............Brian W.

[ammarmalhas]

Screen radius............2.3 M
Height of screen.........2.0M
Projector to screen......2.2M
Overlap each screen....370mm
Uses 30 lines.
Middle screen covers....3050mm
side screens cover........2975mm
Height of screen projection....1725mm

Now with those settings you will only just see pixels if you are lucky, on the left hand seat looking left.

That is as good as you can get at 1020p and I am certain you should have very readable signs at that size. Mine certainly are.

Hope that helps...............Brian W.

A very good day to you Brian.

The major difference I can see is the projector/screen distance, you have 2.2m and I have almost 2.8m. That must be it for the pixel sizes and clarity! Do you agree?

You also seem to be using a smaller overlap than I do, only 370mm for a 3050mm (or 2975mm) screen covers, that is about %10, while I am using more like 1200mm for 5280mm front cover and 4950mm side cover!

I may have to move the projectors closer to the screen and go through the screen/projector calibration process, yet again!

Thank you for your feedback, I will always appreciate any advice you have.

Bless you.
Ammar

[navymustang]

Almost all of your problems with this "random" placement of projectors and screen would be eliminated if you used Immersive Display Designer first, to build the architecture for your system, then move to Immersive Calibration Pro for the alignment.

[ammarmalhas]

Almost all of your problems with this "random" placement of projectors and screen would be eliminated if you used Immersive Display Designer first, to build the architecture for your system, then move to Immersive Calibration Pro for the alignment.

Believe me I have tried! I bought the software and it was the first thing I tried, BUT it did not do me any good, not a bit!
Maybe I could not understand the manual! All the manuals from Fly-Elise need to be re-written and made clearer!

Last night I tried it yet again hoping to figure out what use it would be, it was simply of no use! I really do not know what to expect from the software? Where to locate the projectors relative to the screen? I wanted the software to show me the projections on the screen without having to do it physically, and I suppose that is the main purpose for the software!

The software lacks the ability to adjust the projectors keystone value (set at 1 only on my 3 Optoma 1080 projectors) and produces very weird shapes on the "screen" that are not even close to what I have in real life!

I am happy with the trials I have done and the little geometry I still remember from high-school! 

[navymustang]

Sorry that you are having such issues.  The first thing I would do is remove all keystone values that are on the projectors.

Let Immersive Display Pro and calibration software handle all of that.

[ammarmalhas]

Sorry that you are having such issues.  The first thing I would do is remove all keystone values that are on the projectors.

Let Immersive Display Pro and calibration software handle all of that.

I will probably be doing this in the coming few days.
I will report back any changes.

[ammarmalhas]

A quick update after doing the following:

I moved the projectors closer to the screen to around 2.2m each (center is at 2.5m),
I removed the keystone of the projectors, all now set to 0,
I set the overlap to only about 37-40cm on both sides of the center projection screen,
I re-calibrated with Immersive Calibration Pro using the very easy "No-Camera" method,
I took the "Viewgroup" resulting file and applied it in P3D,


THE RESULTS are:

A much clearer (crispier) image, I now can only see the pixels when I move closer to the screen and then they are around 1x1mm (instead of 3-4mm), so the image looks much better and colors are more vibrant,

The smaller projectors overlap results in a blend area which is brighter than the rest of the screen, but you get used to it and it is more or less visible depending on the scenery, I tried changing the blending curves but not much can be done!

Reduced the FOV from 235° to 216° which is more than enough for me,

It may be my imagination but I now have less flickering (where a few pixels change brightness is the best I can explain it).


My advice to people with projector setups is to try to move the projectors as close as possible to the screen, the difference is really noticeable and well worth the trouble of reworking the setup.