I have a 4x3 monitor and use FSPanelStudio to make my panels. I sent a panel to a friend who has a 16x10 monitor. His gauges show up as oblong in the horizontal direction.

 

Is there any way I can manually go into the panel.cfg and scale the x and Y size values? If so, what ratios do I need so his gauges will show as round as they should be?

 

Thanks, Bob.

 

Edit: Since I posted this I have seen that it is not only the gauges that are stretched. The panel BMP are also stretched. Maybe there is no fix. If there is I'd sure appreciate any suggestions.

Unfortunately, there is no support whatever in FSPS for what is now the most common monitor size of 16:9 ratio. All but a few of my monitors here in my development shop are wide-screen. I've quite deliberately kept three 4:3 ratio monitors available and treat them like royalty, since it is darn near impossible to replace them these days!

 

The most essential requirement for making 2d panels that will display correctly on a 16:9 wide-screen monitor is the actual panel background image, as you've now learned. As a comparison, here are the sizes of the 2d panels I developed for Eaglesoft's SR22 series:

1. 4:3 - 1280x960 pixels
   
2. 16:9 - 1680x1050 pixels
   

This will provide a correctly scaled background on which to place 2d gauges. Unfortunately, FS itself has no way of knowing if the user has a 4:3 or 16:9 ratio monitor, so it will "autoscale" all 2d gauges to a fixed 4:3 ratio. As a result, we have to manually adjust the width of all 2d gauges to "compensate" for the stretching that will occur, by reducing the width parameter for every gauge entry...

 

For example, here is the gauge entry for the same PFD gauge as configured for the two ratio sizes. The width size parameter is highlighted in red. Note that the 16:9 width is

 

4:3 ratio - gauge01=essr22avidynesTx!PFD, xxx,xxx,515,408,PFD MAIN width = 0.792233 x height

16:9 ratio -gauge01=essr22avidynesTx!PFD, xxx,xxx,682,543,PFD MAIN width = 0.7961876 x height

 

At least FS Panel Studio will create the [Windowxx] header for us correctly for a wide-screen 2d panel:

//--------------------------------------------------------

[Window01]

file=Main_Panel.bmp

file_1024=Main_Panel.bmp

size_mm=1680,1050

window_size_ratio=1.000

position=0

visible=1

ident=1

window_size= 1.000, 1.000

window_pos= 0.000, 0.000

 

On the other hand, any popup sub-panels will need to be corrected manually. To accomplish this task, I use FSPS's facility for adjusting the size and width of the sub-panel's display (making the display width narrower) and then checking in the sim to see the end result. Repeat and check until satisfied.

 

window_size= 0.545, 0.155

window_pos= 0.000, 0.855

 

Of course, you have to have a 16:9 ratio monitor to do any of this!

Hi Bill. I knew if anyone could answer this question it was you. I appreciate it. I guess there is no way I can fix the panel so it will work on 16/9 monitors. I could resize the bmp but would have no way to check out the gauge sizes. I was hoping that I could ratio the horizontal sizes and let my friend see if it worked OK. Best regards, Bob.

Hi Bill. I knew if anyone could answer this question it was you. I appreciate it. I guess there is no way I can fix the panel so it will work on 16/9 monitors. I could resize the bmp but would have no way to check out the gauge sizes. I was hoping that I could ratio the horizontal sizes and let my friend see if it worked OK. Best regards, Bob.

Without you having a 16:9 ratio wide screen monitor yourself, you would have a tough time of it, that's for sure and certain.

 

Of course, if your friend runs in Windowed mode, he could grab the right side of the Window and slide it over to the left until the gauges were round, leaving a blank area on the right side...

Ok... 4:3 screen... 3 pixels vertically for ever 4 pixels horizontally.... 640/480 = 1.33 == 4/3 = 1.33.

16:9... 9 pixels vertically for every 16 pixels horizontally... 1680/1050 = 1.6 == 16/9 = 1.6

 

If your gauge in 4:3 is 100pixels by 100pixels... then to convert to 16:9 you simply have to do that math. If you leave the height at 100pixels then the width has to be 100/1.6 = 62.5. Since there's no such thing as setting a half-pixel width... round up to 63. Thus your gauge on a widescreen image would be 63pixels by 100pixels.

Hi Ed. OK Thanks. That was what I was hoping to be able to do. So I need to stretch the bmp to 16/9 format and do the math to all of the horizontal sizes it should work OK. I'd buy a 16/9 monitor but my computer hutch will not allow me to fit in a larger monitor. Best regards, Bob.

Hi,

 

Odd, I didn't have to change all of the width values of my gauges, but I made sure that my widescreen bitmap was the same *height* as my square one, and it was *wider* by exactly the same amount as the screen is wider. Then I could use the same Y values for all my gauges.

 

As an example, one "regular panel" bitmap is 1600 x 1200 pixels. The 16:9 widescreen panel bitmap is 2133 x 1200.

 

A section of the regular panel:

 

[Window00]

file=MAIN.bmp

size_mm=1600

window_size_ratio=1.000

position=7

visible=1

ident=0

 

gauge00=Z_DC6KMTG!ALTIMETER, 536,716,168,166

gauge01=Z_DC6KMTG!VERTICAL_SPEED_INDICATOR, 543,882,153,153

 

 

The same section of the widescreen panel:

 

[Window00]

file=MAIN_WIDE.bmp

size_mm=2133,1200

window_size_ratio=1.000

position=7

visible=1

ident=0

window_size= 1.000, 1.000

window_pos= 0.000, 0.000

 

gauge00=Z_DC6KMTG!ALTIMETER, 718,716,168,166

gauge01=Z_DC6KMTG!VERTICAL_SPEED_INDICATOR, 725,882,153,153

 

Note that the only change required in the gauge listing is to change the X value, since I added pixels to the left edge of the square bitmap which moved all the gauges over to the right.

 

Hope this helps,

Tom, that only goes to give more weight to the old adage about there being "many ways to skin a cat..." B)

My 16:10 widescreen monitors have a menu-selectable option to run in 4:3 mode...you end up with a window centered between black bars on the sides, same as an HDTV displaying an analog TV channel.

 

When nostalgia drives me to run an oldie done in 4:3, I usually run this way. On my 30" SHD monitor, I still get a 2133 x 1600 window that's bigger than the 21" CRT monitor I used when those add-ons were in their heyday.

 

Regards