FSX forward viewpoint

[dc8flightdeck]

Im running a wide angle forward view across three monitors with eyefinity as a client PC via wideview. pic attached.

This of course places the viewpoint in the middle of the center monitor which is driving the real 737 pilots nuts. They hate it.

I want to move the viewpoint center line to the left monitor in front of the Captains seat. However, when I tried this with wideview, the results were not useable. It looked perfect while parked on the runway centerline but didnt work out at all while flying.

Have any of you attempted this?

Justin

[rs3tier]

interesting, I had someone with a lot of RW hours (but light aircraft only) using my setup last night - and although he really thought my overall solution was good, his main complaint - particularly 10nm out - was that the runway should be in front of him rather than in the center of the forward view.

I also tried using the wideview left/right settings to make some changes - and like you found this has an effect whilst on the ground but makes no real difference once you start dealing with larger distances airborne.

I am guessing over the years there has probably been a lot of discussion about this, and in particular the limitation of having only one optimal point of view in which to view from.  After some discussion on this last night, we are considering picking up the flight deck/shell and moving it all about 12-18" to the right whilst leaving the tv's where they are - so that the person flying is actually seeing the main image more directly in front of them.  Obviously the more we try to improve the CO view point, the more this will detract from the visuals for the FO but I think it will probably be worth it... worth a try at least.

Also, I did try using the rotate option in wideview to offset everything by 2-3 degrees, so rather than having -90, -45, 0, 45, 90 I had -88, -43, 2, 47, 92 - this did make a difference and initially I thought it might have been giving the desired result but after trialing it for 20 minutes I wasn't sure.  I might tinker with it some more but think it might end up making things worse rather than better.

Cheers,
Rob

[jackpilot]

Has been widely debated by Maurice I guess (cant find the post) and while possible the conclusion was that if Capt view is OK FO view is'nt.
Jack

[XOrionFE]

Hi guys,

I have my 60 inch led tvs setup so the center monitor is exactly centered to the shell.   When i run FSX across 3 screens with nvidea surround i run multiple windows in fsx just like a projection system.   The main background view which is hidden behind 3 more views, one for each monitor.  These are then offset by 5 degrees in the .flt file.  On my displays the zoom factor for each camera view is 1.27.   So i have the views setup as -40, 5, and 50.   This works out really well for the Capt but of course looks a little wierd for FO.  But FO is never performing the landings or takeoffs so doesnt matter.   The left seat has to have the view.   On projectors higher angle offsets work a little better 8-10 degrees.    Unfortunaly Justin I think your displays are too small to get the right offset almost no matter what you do.   However, the cockpit is awesome!.     If you ever get out by Chicago area you are always welcome to come by.   I would love to take  a trip out your way sometime and see some of your cockpits.   I love the steam guages on that deck.

Scott

[rs3tier]

Hey Scott,

that is really encouraging for me to hear, as it means I may have been on the right track after all when it comes to using wideview rotation settings - I will continue down that path.  I am assuming that setting an offset in the .flt file is no different to setting it in wideview, except because I have one PC for each TV I don't need to worry about the multiple window stuff.

My zoom works out at 1.31 so it sounds like our aspects should be fairly similar and an offset of 5(ish) degrees will work for me as well hopefully.

Cheers,
Rob

[XOrionFE]

Yes Rob, that is correct.  I did it with wideview as well using 5 computers and 5 60" displaces with each offset by 5 degrees.  Somewhere between 1.27-1.35 zoom should be correct at least for 5 sceens at 45 degree angles. 
You could also push the rotation to 8 degrees.   I tried 10 but didint like it.  8 is probably closest for captain. 5 is a nice compromise for FO.


Good luck

Scott

[dc8flightdeck]

Hi guys,

I have my 60 inch led tvs setup so the center monitor is exactly centered to the shell.   When i run FSX across 3 screens with nvidea surround i run multiple windows in fsx just like a projection system.   The main background view which is hidden behind 3 more views, one for each monitor.  These are then offset by 5 degrees in the .flt file.  On my displays the zoom factor for each camera view is 1.27.   So i have the views setup as -40, 5, and 50.   This works out really well for the Capt but of course looks a little wierd for FO.  But FO is never performing the landings or takeoffs so doesnt matter.   The left seat has to have the view.   On projectors higher angle offsets work a little better 8-10 degrees.    Unfortunaly Justin I think your displays are too small to get the right offset almost no matter what you do.   However, the cockpit is awesome!.     If you ever get out by Chicago area you are always welcome to come by.   I would love to take  a trip out your way sometime and see some of your cockpits.   I love the steam guages on that deck.

Scott

Thanks Scott.
Same here, the FO (always seems to be me) runs the radios at take off and landing so having the view optimized for the captain  would be best.

This sim has one eyefinity forward view and a 90 degree left/right view each driven by individual clients via wideview.

To get the forward view where it needs to be required offsetting it about 30 left. It looked great as long as I stayed on the ground.

[rs3tier]

Hi guys.

I know this is an old thread, but I made a change to my wideview setup today which I am pretty happy with and just thought I would comment in case it was of any interest to others.

I have my view rotated by 6 degrees - favoring the CO side and of course this gives the crabbing effect for the FO side.   Given that I am moving to dual rudders/yokes etc. it seems a shame to have that equipment installed but not be able to fly from that seat.  So i have now set up a switch using SIOC to switch wideview from +6 degreees to -6 degrees.  This allows me to toggle between giving the FO or CO the "corrected" view and leave the opposite side with the "crabbing" instead.

It wasn't particularly difficult - i just used the heading delta setting in the wideview setup and changed it from 45 to 6, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else hence this post.

Cheers,
Rob

[fordgt40]

Hi Rob

Good idea, but how does sioc change the wideview settings?

David

[rs3tier]

I just mapped the views I wanted (look left and look forward) to keypress sequences in FSX (so CTL F for FO and CTL C for CO in my case).
I then set the switch up in SIOC to fire a virtual joystick button - and setup FSUIPC to catch the button event and send the corresponding keypress sequence.

The sioc code is:
Var 1 name vJoy64 Link FSUIPC_OUT Offset $3340 Length 4
Var 2 Link IOCARD_SW device 1 Input 55 Type I
{
&vJoy64 = CHANGEBIT 0 v2 // toggle button 0 of virtual joystick 64
}

Cheers,
Rob

[fordgt40]

Rob

A neat way of doing it 

Many thanks

David