Next Pet Project: Cockpit Ambient Lighting

[RayS]

Now that the 1900 is (mostly) built I can focus on more of the esoteric projects.

One thing that always struck me about flying sims is that the ambient cockpit lighting was always 'Nighttime' even if one is flying in broad daylight.

If you are familiar with the Phillips 'Hue' brand of 120v RGB lighting system, you already know you can adjust them via your iPhone or Android to emit any color of the rainbow and any intensity.
(http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/products/)

Turns out that there's a C# API for that.

It also turns out that X-Plane has Datarefs for Cockpit ambient lighting.

cockpit_light_level_r   float   660+   no   ratio   The red level for the cockpit 'night' tinting, from 0 to 1
cockpit_light_level_g   float   660+   no   ratio   The green level for the cockpit 'night' tinting, from 0 to 1
cockpit_light_level_b   float   660+   no   ratio   The blue level for the cockpit 'night' tinting, from 0 to 1
outside_light_level_r   float   1000+   no   ratio   The red level for the world, from 0 to 1
outside_light_level_g   float   1000+   no   ratio   The green level for the world, from 0 to 1
outside_light_level_b   float   1000+   no   ratio   The blue level for the world, from 0 to 1

I've been able to replicate ambient lighting using a few Hue bulbs and my iPhone, albeit manually.

Using the C# Hue API and the datarefs above, I should be able to automatically create an ambient lighting environment.

More to come I am sure... :-)

[727737Nut]

Very interested in this Ray, keep us posted.
Rob

[RayS]

Last night I got a look at the UDP data coming out of X-Plane....

...thinking of taking up knitting instead.....

[RayS]

So... rather than learn 2 new APIs and write a small trashpile of spaghetti code, I decided that this project is do-able with a teensy and a few power transistors & discrete components.

Most of the stuff is already written for Teensy.

More to come.

[RayS]

Turns out there's this thing called DMX, which interfaces to things like LED light strips and RGB light strips.

(I think it's the same technology used by crazy dudes that deck out their houses in lights for Christmas)

So.. parts are on their way....

How cool would it be if this simulated lightning strikes? 

[RayS]

Well.... There's half the battle...

I'll call this RGB combination "Sunset"

[FredK]

The most eloquent way to do this of course is to set up an external light source that would beam external lighting through the cockpit windows....perhaps using a dimmable/controllable light source mounted on a motorized circular track above (and slightly behind) your projection screen/flat panels....or a continuous controllable LED array mounted externally.  Thus, you would have the effect of light rays moving within the cockpit with changing direction of the flight.  Using the LED array approach you could also simulate banking effects by stacking the LED arrays etc. That would add a significant bit of reality I think.

Remembering back many years ago I believe someone had actually implemented something like this...I cannot find that reference though.

In thinking about it the LED array approach may not be that far fetched and could easily(?) be implemented in a step-by-step fashion. It certainly would work very easily for simulating lightning flashes.

Make sure you have your aviator sunglasses handy though!

Fred K

[jackpilot]

Not hijacking this post but adding with a new approach to the same quest.
Here is a video showing eloquently how immersive this can be when implemented.

This has been posted on a french forum and sharing ideas could be very productive I think.
The video is commented in french but self explaining and impressive when the end result is shown.

Basically the source module is not linked in anyway to the FS PC.
Two photo-sensors measure the light intensity and variation on the wings (one for each wing) as shown on the vidéo.
Data is processed through the card which sends out signals to two high intensity led bars located on each side of the cockpit.
(Two channels 12V 3 Amps each)
To make it work you need two side views with reflection effects generated by FS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8lE6Aogngc

[RayS]

Awesome find, Jack!

That's pretty much what I'm looking at doing. I'm not flying combat so I think at this point just having the ability to display ambient light of the correct color is optimal (Until the project takes on a life of it's own, which they are wont to do...)

So far with the help of a fellow simmer (HT to Kyle, eh!) I'm able to put together an LED ambient light generator that mimics X-Plane sky color. It's new territory for a lot of us but I think necessary, considering it's weird to sit in a dark cockpit while flying in broad daylight.

More to come.

[jackpilot]

Unfortunately, FS does not seem to have lighting  datarefs .
So the light sensor system could be the way to go with FS/P3D.
The glitch is that we do not see the wings of the 737 and two more windows should be open, (see pic) to feed the sensors, but even small they probably would tax the FPS.
Any idea from the 180/220° crowd ?

[jackpilot]

Unfortunately, FS does not seem to have lighting  datarefs .
So the light sensor system could be the way to go with FS/P3D.
The glitch is that we do not see the wings of the 737 and two more windows should be open, (see pic) to feed the sensors, but even small they probably would tax the FPS.
Any idea from the 180/220° crowd ?