I've been toying around the last fortnight with panel design and find it rather incongruent that the scale of a panel is dependent on the smallest item on the panel. The way TRI incorporates the needle pointers on the instruments is to have a single pbg file with 361 frames displaying the pointer at every degree position from 0 to 360. Since Photoshop has an x and y maximum pixel dimension of 30,000 for its graphics files this means the largest needle pointer can be only 41 pixels long!!! ( 83 x 361 = 29963 ) This is quite small and limits the scale of the instrument.What I would like to know is would it be possible to get Fly!! to interrogate the pbg file every 2 degrees instead of every degree. This would enable the use of only 181 frames thus allowing the size of the frame ( needle pointer ) to be effectively doubled. Thus instruments could be much much larger.Alternatively does anyone know if the 30,000 xy limit of Photoshop can be altered or know of a graphics program that can handle 256 colour bmp files larger than 30,000 pixel x,y dimensions.Attachment is a work in progress.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

> The way TRI incorporates the needle pointers on the>instruments is to have a single pbg file with 361 frames>displaying the pointer at every degree position from 0 to>360.Actually I think it's 360 frames isn't it, for 0 -> 359 degrees? There's no reason to have the 360 degree frame which would be identical to the 0 degree frame.>What I would like to know is would it be possible to get Fly!!>to interrogate the pbg file every 2 degrees instead of every>degree. This would enable the use of only 181 frames thus>allowing the size of the frame ( needle pointer ) to be>effectively doubled. Thus instruments could be much much>larger.I am almost positive that this is handled no problem. I don't think there is any built-in requirement for any particular number of frames in the PBG, it should use however many are there. Just create the 180-frame PBG and try it out...and let us know :-)>Attachment is a work in progress.Very nice!Chris WallaceOttawa, Canada

G'day Chris,Thanks for your help. I have opened-modified and re assembled the needle1.pbg file and TRI do use 361 frames. I guess it has something to do with the programming that requires both 0 and 360 to have a frame for the needle! I hadn't even thought of just using 180 frames and seeing what happens. ( at best I thought that all I'd get would be 180 degrees of pointer movement and then a ctd ). I'll give it a try and see. I thought that the movement may be a little bit jerky but I can live with that. I remember way back when I was young I had an MG TC sports car that had a beautiful Smiths 7" face chronometric tachometer. That instrument was a joy to behold just whatching the needle pointer ticking away. Early aircraft used chronometric tacho's but the cost factor lead to it giving way to the cheap and nasty magnetic drag cup movement. Thanks for the tip; I'll give it a try and get back to you.Cheers,Roger @YSSY

Roger,I see what you mean now...but there are only a very few needles that use 361 frames. Almost all of them use 360 frames, except for a few of the needle1, needle2, etc. in accommon.pod. Take a look at kaneedl1.pbg for example, there are many many others.In any case, I'm pretty sure you'll be successful using 180 or any other reasonable number of frames.Chris WallaceOttawa, Canada

Chris,You're absolutely right. There's no need for the 360 or 361 frames.In a needle gauge, Fly! will divide 360