Couple Cam2Pan questions

[Guest]

I broke down and bought a cheap web-cam tonight at Walmart to see what all the Cam2pan excitement was about, and I'll add my endorsement as well, great add-on! But, the problem with my setup is that I bought a really cheap web-cam ($20) which said "Up to 30 fps" but the only way to get that was to basically turn the exposure setting to nill, which resulted in extremely dark images. So, after much frustration and just about giving up, I remembered the tiny LED light I had, which I then clipped to my ball cap and the whole setup worked beautifully! I put a picture at the bottom showing the camera picture with the light on and off, to see the difference. Ok, enough rambling, on to my question...I use the "Auto Center" option in Cam2pan, which I think fixes the problem others were talking about where if you pan a large way around (say over your shoulder) then when you try to return to center, it's off from where your "center" view was before. So it ruins the magic if you have to hit the recenter keyboard shortcut after a long pan. But, with auto centering, you always return to the same "straight ahead" view. However, when I return to auto center, my PC speaker makes a loud beep to let me know, and I can't find any setting to turn this off. Is anybody else getting this? Can I please turn it off? It's good to know I'm back in the auto center window, but with sleeping roomates this isn't acceptable noise.A couple other quick comments: What exactly are the inner and outer windows in the auto center settings? And second, a suggestion, that when returning to the auto centering window, the cursor shouldn't just "snap" back to dead center, but should return there at either the auto center rate or something like 5 times the auto center rate, but still with smooth movement, otherwise it's just as abrassive a jump as if you had hit the reset view key to jump back to straight ahead view (another one of those nit-picky things that ruins the magic of the setup.)But all around, fantastic work, and thanks for such a wonderful addition to FS.John BumgarnerSpecs:Athlon 1.8GhzGF3 Ti500256MB RAMWinXPFS2002

[Guest]

John, 1. Yes, you can turn the beep off: Go to the main window, select the "Options" menu, then "Hot keys". Uncheck "Beep on centering". 2. The explanation of "Center Zone" and "Outer Zone" is found in Help, in the Auto Center Dialog section:The Center Zone parameters (Width and Height) determine the size of the rectangular zone in the center of the screen, where virtual cursor is automatically dragged to the center or the view automatically slides to the straightforward direction.The Outer Zone determines the virtual boundary of cursor movement or a maximum angle of view turn (panning). This is needed for games that have a panning limit (like IL2 Sturmovik). The Outer Zone should be located within those limits. 3. As to making auto-centering more gradual, yes, we'll try to address it in the next version. Thanks. 4. With your LED on: do you check the "Flashlight mode" box? It helps. 5. Have you tried comparing the performance of your LED with that of "Cap-mark" (see the "Cap-mark" section in Help or in the website). We'll appreciate your opinion. Thanks for your enthusiasm. Best wishes. Alex Cohnwww.mousevision.com

[Mike S KPDX 597]

I did the same as you, however mine was a disaster. Got the camera working OK, and got Cam2Pan installed. I worked marginally with FS2k2 in a windowed mode. But in 3D mode (alt enter) the cursor flicked off to some bizarre angle. I spent about 20 minutes trying to utilize it in 3D but spent most of the time looking at the headliner over the back seat. I even used the centering keystrokes, worked for about 5 seconds, then whoosh... the behind the seat floor mats sure look nice.Uninstalled both the camera software and the Cam2Pan, boxed up the Camera and grabbed the reciept. I will be taking it back on Thursday.For what its worth, here is the camera unit...http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...uct_code=285905

[Guest]

Alex,Thanks for the great reply. I'm not sure how I missed the center zone and outer zone explanations, but I will comment that the help file page on auto centering would be more useful if it said something like: "If

[Guest]

Mike,Just a couple thoughts on your setup, you may want to greatly reduce the X speed and the Y speed on the Panning options. I use something around 8% and 12% for my values. This is because with active camera mouse mode (F12) a very small movement of the mouse results in a fairly large swing of the view, so in order to have a stable setup, you have to move the mouse cursor very little each way. I also found that the auto-centering helped greatly with keeping the view in the right overall direction. Just some thoughts. It does require a good bit of tweaking to get it the way you want it, but once you get it working it's well worth it!John Bum

[Mike S KPDX 597]

Thanks John, I will give it another try. I have the same cheap camera and I fly in the evening in a dim room. I think I will try to find some kind of light LED for my cap also. I assume this would allow both a dim room, minimal 'expose' and thus higer framerates. The way I understand it is that the 'cap mark' (paper) is good for daylight and the light is for evening.Thanks for the tips, I hack on it some more.

[Guest]

John, Thanks for suggesting a better way to explain the beep option. Also, thanks for your good comparison of the performances of LED and Cap-Mark. Your explanation of the difference is very competent: Indeed the LED shines uni-directionally, while the light from the Cap-Mark is omni-directional (has a much broader diagram of directivity). Many people will find this info useful. As to the cursor, it can be made invisible, no problem: go to the settings of MSFS2002, or to the settings of an imbedded script. Thanks again.Best wishes.Alex

[Bob Deyo 0]

I've got cam2pan installed and it follows the head movement as long as the mouse wheel is held down. When the wheel is up the cursor follows the head movement but the view remains stationary. There is a hot key (ctrl-down) which is supposed to emulate the center mouse button, but has no effect. Could my mouse be sending a key combination other than this?Thanks in advance for any help.Bob Deyo

[Guest]

Bob, Hit F12, then you won't need to keep the mouse-wheel down for panning when using Active Camera Pro (as mentioned in the middle of the Download page). For a discussion by other users you may wish to seehttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/14397.htmlAs to CTRL+DOWN hot key, try to assign a different combination of keys to this function, if you still need it. Best wishes, Alex Cohn

[Guest]

I had much better luck than you - it does take a significant amount of trial and error - but I am having difficulty in making the product work as well as conventional UI devices (ie, mouse, hatswitch, etc). I was able to fly around and look in the general direction I intended to. It was a lot of fun to try.While the concept is excellent and the price is certainly right, however the trouble is that the camera tracks motion not position. If it would center EXACTLY when my head is centered and rotate left 10^ when my head rotates left 10^ every single time (and somehow read my mind and panned where I was thinking ;)) then I would continue to use it. The technology holds great promise - it's just that I can look at what I want more quickly and return back to center better by holding the mouse button than by moving my head. There's probably a way to dampen the user-induced jerkiness also, but I found that unless locked in the center zone it was jumping around too much.I'm not a big fan of VC's either (which is an admitted bias), but whether flying VC or 2D I use aux panels for quadrant, overhead, etc. C2P in tracking mode does not allow me to easily use the mouse to access the other panels. For a multi-monitor WidevieW fan such as myself, I must say that the ability to look UP and to the left when coming around to final is excellent. The runway always disappears off the top of my front-left monitor!Now what about a hybrid idea: using a two PC system, have the server be the 2D panel view (or VC if that is your flavor) and have the client be able to track to a random point in space (ie the approach end of the runway). That way you could fly your pattern/approach/manuever/aerobatics out the front and always be able to see your selected point of reference on your second machine. Ideally one would also be able to see the aircraft structure (wing, tail, nose) for reference. Maybe you can already do this with activecam but I'm too ignorant to accomplish this :(.

[Bob Deyo 0]

Thanks Alex,I had the vague feeling that the problem was caused by me not reading, seeing, or understanding something or other. It isn't the first time. It's a very nice add on. Thanks.