Help with 180 degree screen with TH2GO, three Benqs and Nthusim

[fsaviator]

My turn everybody... looking to you guys (Mau, Scott, Ivar and anyone else) for some help.

I have FINALLY gotten my projectors hung, my screen hung, and am now tweaking the visuals.  I've used windowmaker and calculated my views, edited the FLT file and gotten my zoom pretty close.

I'm using Nthusim and have warped the screen as necessary to line everything up on my masking tape grid.



In position, ready for take-off it looks pretty good.





As I climb you begin to see the issue develop at the seams of the projector (I am not using blending)



As the climb increases it gets worse



The bank isn't too bad on one side, but drops off on the other



Now I know that just by the nature of using a curved screen this will never be perfect.  I don't remember it being so pronounced in my last sim though.

Any ideas?

[XOrionFE]

How tall is your screen?   Mine is only 48".   If yours is a lot taller you may have more of an issue but yes, you will have some of that.   I usually get mine out over the ocean level flight so I have a really good horizon line then I tweak the warping to make it as perfect as possible on that line.  Then back to runway and tweak that so it looks good to the bottom of my screen and along the sides.   After that, I think you have to accept the distortion in extreme pitches or banks.

[fsaviator]

My screen is also 48".

I'm trying to remember a post where someone used a terminal building at some German airport.  All the windows made it easy to line everything up

Thanks Scott

[Maurice]

Hi Warren,

There's seems to be way too much distortion but I don't get your setup. It seems like there are several flat panels (5?) with 3 projectors. Is that right? Also, I don't know if this is just an optical illusion, but the warping correction does not look right to me. It seems like the squares are not the same size and they should be very close in size.

The best way to divide the screens is to always use odd numbers of grid lines horizontally & vertically. So you would start with 3 vertical & 3 horizontal lines so that they divide the screen in half. Then you go to 5 lines so that the screen is divided in 4 etc... This way, you should end up with squares that are very similar in size.

But even with perfect warping, the horizon line will not be flat at the junctions when climbing or descending, but not as badly as yours seems to be. But the final adjustments need to be done with a real image. This is a functionality that is missing with Nthusim but which is available with FlyElise or Warpalizer. You may want to give FlyElise light a try with the evaluation version.

Maurice

[DaveC]

I'm trying to remember a post where someone used a terminal building at some German airport.  All the windows made it easy to line everything up

Thanks Scott

Hi Warren, I hope things are well.  I think the post you are thinking of was actually the presentation given by Jon Boe at the FDS open house.  I have no experience with Nthusim, but I experience the same thing with Warpalizer.  I'm not sure if the 3D blending fixes that or not because I have not tried yet.  Good luck.

Dave C

[fsaviator]

Hi Warren,

There's seems to be way too much distortion but I don't get your setup. It seems like there are several flat panels (5?) with 3 projectors. Is that right? Also, I don't know if this is just an optical illusion, but the warping correction does not look right to me. It seems like the squares are not the same size and they should be very close in size.

Hi Mau,
The screen has one flat area in the front center.  It was originally a true 8ft wide semi-circle but I have widened it to 10ft wide with a 2ft flat panel in the front center.  The screen was built to fit my first sim room in the US.  This room is wider.

The best way to divide the screens is to always use odd numbers of grid lines horizontally & vertically. So you would start with 3 vertical & 3 horizontal lines so that they divide the screen in half. Then you go to 5 lines so that the screen is divided in 4 etc... This way, you should end up with squares that are very similar in size.

I'm using an odd number of horizontal and vertical grids, and butting the views in between two grids.  The furthest vertical grids back on each side, towards the tail of the plane is off screen though in order to keep the grids the same size.  Here is the butting:

But even with perfect warping, the horizon line will not be flat at the junctions when climbing or descending, but not as badly as yours seems to be. But the final adjustments need to be done with a real image. This is a functionality that is missing with Nthusim but which is available with FlyElise or Warpalizer. You may want to give FlyElise light a try with the evaluation version.

I think I'll give FlyElise a try and see if I get a better result.

Thanks Mau.

[fsaviator]

I'm trying to remember a post where someone used a terminal building at some German airport.  All the windows made it easy to line everything up

Thanks Scott

Hi Warren, I hope things are well.  I think the post you are thinking of was actually the presentation given by Jon Boe at the FDS open house.  I have no experience with Nthusim, but I experience the same thing with Warpalizer.  I'm not sure if the 3D blending fixes that or not because I have not tried yet.  Good luck.

Dave C

Hey Dave, long time.  Hope all is well.

Thanks, that may be why I can't find anything...  memory just isn't what it used to be.

Warren

[fsaviator]

But even with perfect warping, the horizon line will not be flat at the junctions when climbing or descending, but not as badly as yours seems to be. But the final adjustments need to be done with a real image. This is a functionality that is missing with Nthusim but which is available with FlyElise or Warpalizer. You may want to give FlyElise light a try with the evaluation version.

Maurice

Mau,

I'm playing around with FlyElise Immersive Display Lite2  Demo and have a question...

I use my TH2GO view as my secondary display as the primary off my card runs my lower EICAS (and the screen I use to run windows and other programs).

FlyElise won't run the setup program unless I use it on the primary it seems.  That's fine I guess in order to set it up, but if I switch back to the other display as my primary, will it still run?

Warren

[Flying_Fox]

FlyElise won't run the setup program unless I use it on the primary it seems.  That's fine I guess in order to set it up, but if I switch back to the other display as my primary, will it still run?

Warren

Hi Warren,

In my experience With FlyElise no, it will not run properly if you switch displays.

Nick

[Maurice]

OK Warren, I understand your setup now. So here is what I think is wrong. Although you said you used "an odd number of horizontal and vertical grid lines", the warping still does not look right to me. If it was, all the small squares inside the thicker grid lines should be much closer in size than yours are.

In the picture I enclosed, you can see a big difference in the size of the small squares and that should not be. I suspect that is the biggest reason why you are seeing such a big difference on the runway edge. The size of the individual small squares is dependent on the size of the larger grid lines and if the larger grid lines are not equally spaced throughout the whole screen, then the smaller squares cannot be the same size all over.

Having said that, as I already mentioned, you will likely need to adjust the warping somewhat to make it look right. I also had to do that and when you do that, the grid lines will no longer be 'perfect' if there is such a thing. but the small squares should still be very close size wise and certainly much closer than yours seem to be unless the pictures you posted look different that what you actually see.

What I can also tell you is that even if the final warping is not perfect, you will soon forget about it. When I first set mine up. I HATED the fact that the horizon line does not remain flat when you are climbing or descending. But that was when I looked at it as a whole unobstructed view. When i got into the cockpit and actually started flying, it stunned me how unimportant that became and I barely notice it anymore unless I am doing some stunt flying in a 737  . In normal flying with gradual climbs or descents, I'm not even aware that the horizon line is not straight and when I notice, it really is just a very minor distraction compared to the overall wide screen effect.

As for your FlyElise question, I don't know the answer but Nick answered and I'm pretty sure he is right.

Hope this helps,

Maurice

[Garys]

Nice to see your update warren. Things look like they are progressing nicely. I agree with Maurice that once you get your grids to even sizes that will improve the problems you are seeing. The website your looking for  is  http://www.flying-the-winglets.de/Visual3.html

Gary

[fsaviator]

...The website your looking for  is  http://www.flying-the-winglets.de/Visual3.html

Gary

Gary, you are the man!  Thanks.

Mau, you were spot on.  I redid the grids using 5 x 5 and the same measurements for each square and it came out much better, both with the FlyElise Demo and with Nthusim.  Still needs a little fine tuning, but I think I'll hold on that until later.

Thanks everyone...  I have some rudders arriving tomorrow and I just painted my screen...  FSWeekend coming up in a few days which will cut into my building time but hey!  It will be a fun time in Lelystad.

Warren

[Nat Crea]

I think I'll give FlyElise a try and see if I get a better result.

GDay Warren,

Not being biased here at all, but one warp software over another will not give you a better result....Its all in the alignment, you just need to keep tinkering...I still do  (just for fun)

Nat

[Nick1150]

Good morning to all,

Hey Warren, nice to see you are in the next level !!!

I am a few months behind you as far as visuals is concerned, so I am very interested in what you are doing here man. Hope to see you again in Athens really soon,

Regards,

[HarryZ]

Warren,

I've spent the last 2 months constructing a 3 projector system with a 20' x 5' curved, 135 degree screen.  I've used Warpalizer to get the image looking quite decent

First of all, you are not doing yourself any favours by having your screen with a 2 foot flat centre section.  You have spent a lot of money with the 3 projectors so you shouldn't compromise with your screen. 

Is there any possibility of making your screen larger? Having a 10' screen with 3 projectors really isn't enough to take advantage of this kind of system. Any chance expanding it to 20 ft and a constant radius?  I built my screen out of FRP board which is light, easy to work with, very flexible and very inexpensive.  The the single piece cost me $ 1.70 sq foot.

In viewing your pictures, there appears to be a lot of distortion.  I'm not familiar with Nthusim and what its features can do but with Warpilizer, you can get an very good result with proper horizon lines and little distortion.  Curved screens require an approx 20% projector overlap and this area can be blended nicely to end up with seamless connections between the left, centre and right projectors.  The additional brightness in this overlapped  area can also be blended out with gamma control so you end up with an excellent 135 degree view with proper colour and minimal distortion.  It takes a lot of work and patience but if you are going to spend the money on upgrading your sim, it's well worth it.

This kind of system enhances the motion sensation to a huge degree and makes flying your a/c a real treat.

Since this is one of my first posts on this site, I'm not sure how to insert a pic of my screen. Will have to work on that one.

Harry

[fsaviator]

Thanks Harry.
I worked it out.  It will never be perfect with the space I have available but I knew that from the outset when I moved up from GA to 737.  My current screen is based on the materials I had used in my GA screen and had available.
It just needs a little tweaking, and it will be more than sufficient when all external references are eliminated.  As Mau says, I've found that it doesn't take long and you don't notice the imperfections.  I'd rather have a spot on point of view that allows me to orient myself out the side windows and align onto a runway than a perfectly straight horizon when banking beyond 20 degrees.  For me it's about procedures, having switches to hit, and the ability to fly and land a visual approach.  Everything else is just blue/black skies and clouds during long periods of trying to stay ahead of the plane.
Cheers