View Distortions in FS9

[kmanning 12]

Hi all,This is the first time I've been in this forum. I'm sure many of you have noticed that in FS9 if you zoom out all the way, the entire scenery view is distored very badly. It looks like you're looking through a lens or a magnifying glass that has a curve in it which distorts the view when you look through it. If you zoom out, you'll see what I mean. Even thought that distortion is not as noticable in the normal view, that distortion still exist. The problem with this is that it makes objects move in a non-linear fashion and does not give you the true perspective view. I have always noticed this in FS9 ever since it came out. It's not that I want to use any other zoom setting other than normal but the point is, it distorts the true perspective view of what you would actually see in the real world and I do see the difference between the real world view and the view in FS9. For one thing, the ground actually moves much slower in the real world than it does in FS9. I hope the views will be much more realistic in FSX.Ken.

[Forkboy2 27]

I don't think what you are describing is a limitation of FS9. I think it's more a matter of optics. In FS, there is a big difference between zoom and distance. If you want to avoid the fish eye effect change the distance setting instead of the zoom. In cockpit views, you may need 3rd party application to do this.Matt

[Guest jrobert]

If you were to zoom out all the way in FS9 and project its image upon a concave screen, you will see that the distortion is no longer appearant. Therefore, the destortion is actually very natural. You would get the exact same effect if you were to use a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens on a 35mm SLR camera. The distortions can always be corrected by bending the screen upon which the image is projected.

[tgibson 11]

Hi,I think a great improvement would be to add keyboard controls to alter the distance of the view in addition to the zoom. Then this distortion would not happen when desired.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Mats_J 2]

>I think a great improvement would be to add keyboard controls to alter >the distance of the view in addition to the zoomHear, hear! Tom, you just put words on what I've wanted for a long time. I would even go further and say reset the default zoom in/zoom out keys to distance in/out. At least for the outside views, for the cockpit views I guess it makes sense to have zoom in/zoom out as the default means of changing the view.Cheers,

[kmanning 12]

>If you were to zoom out all the way in FS9 and project its>image upon a concave screen, you will see that the distortion>is no longer appearant. Therefore, the destortion is actually>very natural. You would get the exact same effect if you were>to use a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens on a 35mm SLR camera. The>distortions can always be corrected by bending the screen upon>which the image is projected.>That would be true but FS9 is shown on a computer monitor, not projected on a concaved screen. But I do understand what you're saying. And for it to be perfectly linear, the concaved screen must exactly match the degree of distortion. It seems like I read that flight simulator does not use degrees but radians instead. I've noticed as I'm taxing and I make a turn, the objects near the outside of the screen are moving a little faster than objects at the center of the screen and the objects appear stretched out a little at the outside of the screen. Of course, there's nothing wrong with my monitor. This is due to the distortion of the view in flight simulator. This distortion is not natural and does not exist in the real world. It's true that there's a difference between zoom and distance, but you should be able to zoom in and out without the distortion. There are cameras that do exactly that. But like I said, I'm not interested in changing the zoom or the distance, I would just like to have the view without the distortion so it would be more realistic. I just said that if one zooms out, the distortion would be more noticable. But like I said, that distortion still exist even with the zoom setting set to 1.00. I hope Microsoft will fix this in FSX. Ken.

[Guest jrobert]

>That would be true but FS9 is shown on a computer monitor, not>projected on a concaved screen.There are VGA and DVI projectors out there which are suitable for what I was talking about. On another note, I know that (for obvious reasons) you can't bend a single CRT or LCD display, however, multiple displays of this type can be tied together to form a kind of wrap-a-round effect. This is essentially how to bend an array of CRT or LCD displays into a concave configuration. In this scenerio, it would take 5 monitors displaying a specific view at 1x-zoom to have a full 180-degree field-of-view. Starting from the monitor to your left and moving to the right-most monitor; monitor #1 displays the left view, #2 displays the left-front view, #3 displays the forward view, #4 displays the right-front view, and #5 displays the right view. This could conceivably be expanded upon to create a complete 360-degree field-of-view, however, the additional monitors and computer hardware make such a scenerio somewhat cost and/or space prohibitive.

[n4gix 4,947]

>I hope Microsoft will fix this in FSX. Considering that (a) the feature set is closed, and that (:( something will be "fixed" if it is perceived as a problem and is fixable, don't expect any changes in this regard.

[Guest tdragger]

Have you heard of this company? http://www.elumens.com/We'll be demoing FSX running on one of their domes at E3.

[Mats_J 2]

tdragger,That looks really interesting for the simpit builders. But the website is pretty sparse with details. No contact information at all. Is this a newly started company?Cheers,

[kmanning 12]

>tdragger,>>That looks really interesting for the simpit builders. But the>website is pretty sparse with details. No contact information>at all. Is this a newly started company?>>Cheers,>>That sure would be great but like you said, the website is pretty sparse and with no contact information. I bet it's very expensive.Ken.

[Guest tdragger]

Their web site used to be way better. I dunno what the deal is.

[JET 1 0]

Try this:http://www.elumens.com/main.html

[n4gix 4,947]

Particularly this page:http://www.elumens.com/products/visionstation.html

[Guest]

That looks cool, whats the price range for those?