Another radar gauge for VC & Window usage

[n4gix 4,947]

Yes keep the one coming with Acceleration. I doubt that PMDG takes 4 different versions to work properly!

Sim Connect was deliberately designed for SxS (Side-by-Side) versioning. There is a unique Sim Connect module for every version of the sim. When loaded, a gauge/module will use the appropriate version automatically.

[roland_lfor 245]

Guys,

 

I have to say that I'm really surprised to see the download counter crossing 2000 today!

 

When I started up this project I did not expect such score

 

I have to be honest however, as it only represents around 600 downloads for the (last) version 1.0, which is the fith public version.

 

Anyway, I hope (most of) you enjoy flying safer avoiding CB cells in front of you!

 

cheers

 

Roland

[warbirds 555]

Loving it, thanks !

[TheFiddler 5]

Hello All,

sorry if this perhaps spoils the party a little after everyone seems to be happy -- but I am still unable to get the radar gauge to work. I have read and worked through this thread at least three times, but none of the solutions reported have helped in my case.

As Lucas and others above, I do see the gauge background (dark square), with perfect Alpha transparency, and with the cursor changing in certain places to "hand" with + or with - sign, but all "content" is missing: no blue text (if ASN is not running), no dotted distance arcs, and of course no radar echos.
With the "Bendix" variant, I do see the bezel, too, but again, no "content".

The setup:

• Win7 Home Premium,
• FSX Gold (classic DVD; thus not SE, not P3D),
• ASN newest version (B5589), running on the same machine as FSX and working fine.
• all three SimConnect versions (RTM, SP1, SP2) are there as they should (I have the full SDK installed).
  And I have multiple-checked and tested the SimConnect configuration.
• VCredist x86 2013 was already in place, but just in case I re-downloaded and re-installed it.
• Panel.cfg is definitely ok (I do a lot of panel fiddling), as is also proven by the gauge actually appearing, just not with "content".

I tried the default C172, both the standard and the "G1000" variant.
And I have so far aimed only for the 2D popup gauge version (from v.1.0 of course), not any VC integration.
Thus:

[Window Titles]
Window00=Main Panel
...
Window06=Roland Weather Radar
...
...
[Window06]
size_mm=100,150
position=2
visible=1
Window_pos=0.05,0.65
zorder=4
background_color=16,16,16
alpha_blend=0.75    // ori .55
gauge00=RolasnRadar!oRadGauge, 0,0,100,150, sweep|beam|icing

As said, I have carefully checked and tried to apply all solutions reported earlier in this thread, but all to no avail.

The older Bryn's gauge and the ASN XGauge work fine, though.

I noticed one thing when ploughing through several thousand lines of SimConnect log; it may or may not be significant. But I do not know enough to draw any conclusions. I got only as far as looking up (in the SDK doc.s) that an Exception #9 stands for "SIMCONNECT_EXCEPTION_EVENT_ID_DUPLICATE".
(In case it's related: as advised, I did not try to make a panel.cfg entry for the gauge both under 2D and VC windows; I just tried the 2D popup.)

Those big negative numbers for RequestID and DefineID also look a little suspicious to me.

Here are the lines in question from the log (the last four are perhaps irrelevant):

> 59.49728 [70, 1]Open: Version=0x00000004  Name="Rolby ASN-weather radar"
> 59.49731 [70, 2]SubscribeToSystemEvent:EventID=0, SystemEventName="SimStart"
> 59.49745 [69, 2345]RequestDataOnSimObject:RequestID=-536870912, DefineID=-86050082, ObjectID=1, Period=4, Flags=3, origin=0, interval=0, limit=0
> 59.49828 [70, 3]SubscribeToSystemEvent:EventID=0, SystemEventName="SimStart"
< 59.49829 [70] >>>>>  EXCEPTION=9, SendID=3, Index=1  <<<<<
> 59.49829 [70, 4]AddToDataDefinition:DefineID=0, DatumName="PLANE HEADING DEGREES TRUE", UnitsName="radians", DatumType=4, fEpsilon=0.000000, DatumID=-1
> 59.49830 [70, 5]AddToDataDefinition:DefineID=0, DatumName="PLANE LATITUDE", UnitsName="radians", DatumType=4, fEpsilon=0.000000, DatumID=-1
> 59.49831 [70, 6]AddToDataDefinition:DefineID=0, DatumName="PLANE LONGITUDE", UnitsName="radians", DatumType=4, fEpsilon=0.000000, DatumID=-1
> 59.49832 [70, 7]AddToDataDefinition:DefineID=0, DatumName="PLANE ALTITUDE", UnitsName="feet", DatumType=4, fEpsilon=0.000000, DatumID=-1

One other thing: In the thread, an as_srv.dll is mentioned several times, but I do not have one in the as_srv folder (not even after a full re-install of ASN which I also did). There is only as_btstrp.dll. (Actually, I have also seen as_connect.dll earlier, but that seems now gone after the ASN re-installation. Or is it installed ad hoc, only when required?)

Does as_srv.dll perhaps refer to older ActiveSky versions?
(I also asked on the HiFiTech forum, but have not yet received a reply.)

I realize that it is very difficult or indeed impossible to help from afar with what is clearly a "local" problem, but in case anyone has any other ideas beyond the suggestions already in this, thread, please share.

Cheers,
Martin
 

[roland_lfor 245]

Hello Martin,

 

unfortunately I'm far from my dev computer (vacation) so I can't verify the duplicate event in SimConnect log. It looks like the Dll is loaded twice, but I'm sure you verified your panel.cfg 10 times

 

The required ASN dll is "as_btstrp.dll", this is correct.

 

Can you check you have the related declaration in your DLL.xml:

 

<Launch.Addon>

<Name>as_connect</Name>

<Disabled>False</Disabled>

<Path>as_srv\as_btstrp.dll</Path>

</Launch.Addon>

 

Also a silly test idea in case: can you try to double the gauge size in the panel.cfg?

(width & height)

[roland_lfor 245]

May I suggest also that you use the "ShellRadGauge" implementation instead of the "oRadGauge". Then you know for sure where are the click areas to adjust settings over the Bendix shell.

 

Please add the "|starton" option so we are sure the gauge is on when you load the aircraft (after you switched on the avionic bus.)

[TheFiddler 5]

Hello Roland,

many thanks for your reply and the suggestions!
But first of all, let me emphasize there is no hurry at all -- so do enjoy your vacation at your leisure! B)

Next, I think we may be on to something. I had already tried most of your suggestions, but I went diligently through everything again, to be on the safe side. Most of what I am reporting below may turn out to be irrelevant eventually, but I'll write it up here anyway, for the record (and in case some serious issues are still discovered and have to be analyzed and eliminated).

So here goes:

1. I checked my dll.xml (again), and found that it has indeed this entry:
  <Launch.Addon>
    <Name>as_connect</Name>
    <Disabled>False</Disabled>
    <Path>as_srv\as_btstrp.dll</Path>
  </Launch.Addon>

So, except for the <Name> (which should not matter), it is just the same as you suggested.
On a side note (probably not relevant): I also found a second entry
    <Launch.Addon>
     <Name>ASN server</Name>
     <Disabled>False</Disabled>
     <ManualLoad>True</ManualLoad>
     <Path>as_srv\as_srv.dll</Path>
  </Launch.Addon>
but still don't know (see post above) what this mysterious as_srv.dll is supposed to be. It is not in my as_srv folder, and the SimConnect log thus (correctly) reports it as missing file, but seems otherwise not disturbed. Perhaps a left-over from AS2012 (which I had before ASN)?

2. I experimented with the gauge size, as per your recommendation, and here is what I found.
Note that my monitor is still a "4:3" one, i.e. not "widescreen", running at a resolution of 1280x1024, i.e 5:4 aspect ratio.
In panel.cfg I changed not only the gauge= W and H parameters but also the window's size=... entry accordingly.

Results:
(Note that the FSX C172 with default panel has a [Window00] with size_mm=640, whereas the one with the G1000 panel has [Window00] with size_mm=1024, which may explain that the actual gauge sizes are different even when the panel.cfg entries are the same. Or?)

a) default gauge size:
[Window06]
size_mm=100,150
...
gauge00=RolasnRadar!oRadGauge, 0,0,100,150, sweep|beam|icing

---> actual gauge size on screen (give or take a pixel)
FSX C172 with default panel:     200x300
FSX C172 with G1000:               125x188    

 

B) "doubled" gauge size:
[Window06]
size_mm=200,300
...
gauge00=RolasnRadar!oRadGauge, 0,0,200,300, sweep|beam|icing

---> actual gauge size on screen (give or take apixel)
FSX C172 with default panel:     400x600
FSX C172 with G1000:               252x377    (let's call it 250x376 :smile: )    

Conclusion: Doubling the W and H parameters in panel.cfg results in doubling (linearly) the size of the gauge, as expected.
Absolute sizes are (of course) still different between default and "G1000" variant of the FSX  C172, but that must have to do with the different basic setup of the panels.

3. As per your second post (seen after the Avsim forum was back online again), I now tried the "ShellRadGauge" version of the gauge again (had done it before, but so far with the same result, i.e. no "content").
I also now added the | starton option (undocumented? or had I missed it before?). I had always tried (as per advice you gave earlier in this thread) to click on the gauge clickspots in order to turn the gauge on, but somehow that hadn't helped.

And now things got interesting:

The gauge window is filled up by only a small part of the whole gauge (the upper left corner) in "over-size", consisting mostly of bezel and only a very small slice of the actual radar display.
This had in fact been the case before already, but I hadn't paid attention, thinking that I could fix the dimensions later, once I had managed to get some "radar content" into the gauge.

But now I can see something moving very quickly through the "display" part of the gauge, which must be nothing else but the "radar beam" (see arrow).
Naturally, as I see only a tiny part of the gauge, I see it sweeping through only for the fraction of a second with each turn, but it is definitely there. It became even clearer once I had set the Alpha transparency to 1.0 (i.e. full opacity). So close to the edge, I still don't see any radar echoes, of course, but I am sure they will be there once I can see the whole display.

Naturally in the "bezel-less" other gauge (oRadGauge) I could not notice this "scaling problem", because there are no clues indicating that only a very small corner of the whole gauge is visible. And I didn't see the sweeping beam perhaps because only adding the |starton parameter activated the whole device.
In fact, I can currently still not see the beam on the oRadGauge, but that may be because here all that is visible is perhaps just some "dead corner" which the beam never crosses. Once the "Shell" gauge has been fixed, it will probably be easier for the oRadGauge, too.

Conclusion: It now looks as if the actual problem I have is "merely" one of inappropriate scaling of the gauge -- always a can of worms in FSX, in my experience. Still, that should be fixable (I haven't tried yet). It may need some trial and error, though -- unfortunately I have never fully grasped the correct relations between all those different coordinate systems for panels, a rather confusing mix of millimeters, pixels, percentages, and the respective actual resolution of one's monitor...

(Bonus Question: Why does the ShellGauge have no W and no H parameter at all?)

So, we'll have to see... (literally).

But in any case, do enjoy your vacation first, one must have proper priorities! :wink:
And thanks again for the advice so far!

Cheers,
Martin

 
 

[roland_lfor 245]

Martin,

 

What you see means everything is effectively working as you can see the active beam and range arc.

It's only the way you declare the gauge in panel.cfg.

 

So no problem with SimConnect.

 

I can't read it now but have a look to the SDK for the exact option use cases.

I would suggest to declare first with less options as possible.

 

The ShellRadGauge does not take W & H values because the Shell bitmap size defines them (that's what I understood from my own test...not from the SDK)

[TheFiddler 5]

Hello Roland,

 

now it works! :smile: :smile: :smile:

 

After ploughing through the respective SDK chapter for about the 17th time*, I ended up with these settings:

[Window06]
size_mm=200
. . .
gauge00=RolasnRadar!ShellRadGauge, 0,0,200,200, sweep|beam|icing|nogps|starton

...and everything is now fine. And a great gauge it is indeed!

 

If I may make one suggestion: For me (may be it's my monitor settings, may be it's my eyes) the "darkblue on black" numbers on the display (for tilt, range, etc. values) are very hard to read, at least from my normal eye-monitor distance.

Any chance of making those a little lighter? Unfortunately we don't seem to have a foreground_color parameter to simply take care of this in panel.cfg.

Those numbers are important information and feedback, of course, especially as the buttons are currently not animated and thus cannot indicate current settings.

 

Now on to the non-bezel variant and the VC. Although that won't really be that important to me, because the "Shell" version looks very good.

 

Thanks for producing this splendid gauge, and for the support.

Best wishes for more vacation!

 

Cheers,

Martin

 

* Maybe I am just dense, but I find sentences from the SDK like this one hard to parse:

"size_mm: Specifies the design size of the panel window, in design units. These are not necessarily millimeters [hence the name!?], but this value and the value for pixel_size [which is not documented...] gives the ratio for the size of the panel to the size it should be rendered at ."

 

To be fair, at the very end of that chapter they do give a hint: "However, if you have set size_mm to be 1024, these values are also the pixel values, which can be much easier to deal with."

Only if you really use 1024 for the radar gauge, you end up with all of the instrument panel being covered...

[Jocko Flocko 49]

Hi Roland, just thought I would pass along a *HUGE* thank you for this excellent radar addon. Since it uses realtime radar data, it's compeltely changed the way I navigate and flight plan in P3D2 and FSX. Thanks!

Anyways, the following is for the Alabeo Cessna 404 Titan. I'm converting over all Carenado and Alabeo GA planes that have been using the same radar gauge since forever.

 

[Window Titles]
Window00=AUTOPILOT
Window01=GPS 430
Window02=AVIDYNE
Window03=WINDOW MANAGER
Window04=INFO
Window05=ENGINE SETUP
Window06=KNOB INFO
WindowXX=Roland's Weather Radar

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[WindowXX]
Background_color=0,0,0 
size_mm=937,887
position=7
visible=1
ident=14402
window_size= 0.293, 0.500
window_pos= 0.707, 0.500
zorder=99

gauge00=RolasnRadar!ShellRadGauge,  0,0,937,887,sweep|beam|icing|nogps

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[Vcockpit04]
Background_color=0,0,0 
size_mm=512,512
visible=0
pixel_size=512,512
texture=$Panel_4

//gauge00=WX_Gauge_3D_PAC404!WXGauge,  9,9,492,309
gauge00=RolasnRadar!ORadGauge,  129,47,257,250,sweep|beam|icing

[roland_lfor 245]

Andrew,

 

Thanks for the kind words!

 

However I have to say that your panel.cfg is not correct:

 

1. You cannot declare twice the gauge - as a pop-up + in the VC, you have to choose one of those 2 use cases.

2. In the pop-up case, the correct declaration is:

   

 

 

[Window Titles]

Window00=AUTOPILOT
Window01=GPS 430
Window02=AVIDYNE
Window03=WINDOW MANAGER
Window04=INFO
Window05=ENGINE SETUP
Window06=KNOB INFO
Window07=Roland's Weather Radar

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[Window07]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=937,887
position=7
visible=1
ident=14402
window_size= 0.293, 0.500
window_pos= 0.707, 0.500
zorder=99

gauge00=RolasnRadar!ShellRadGauge, 0,0,937,887,sweep|beam|icing|nogps

 

As the pop-up declaration was wrong, the VC radar was probably working.

    

[Jocko Flocko 49]

Ahh, thank you very much!! I just started working on the reason why that aspect was not functioning. Cheers, you just saved me an hour.

Awesome radar Roland, Thank You.

If a moderator could edit that post to reflect Rolands correction it would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately the post is past editing time, Cheers!

[KJConlon 17]

Amazing gauge creation! Thank you Roland!!

One question though, has anyone gotten this in as a replacement for Carenado's C208's stock weather gauge?

 

Thanks

Kevin

 

[roland_lfor 245]

Kevin,

 

I don't own the C208, but it should be easy to replace it as long as it's a stand alone radar (means not blended with a nav glass cockpit module).

 

You just need to find in your panel.cfg where the original WX radar is declared, then comment it out and insert a line for my gauge instead.

 

Roland

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

Anybody have this working to replace Carenado's Wx radar in their Navajo or PA46?  Like to get rid of Carenado's as it crashes my sim sometimes.  It appears to be functioning...I just can't see it in the VC....

 

Advanced Weather Interface Enabled

ASN active function link set

Ready for ASN WX radar