sprintz

Wow, really nice work there. I'm using (probably) a similar technique as yours for the Aerosoft Airbus. None of the CustomDraw navaid icons look anything like the real A32X's, so it all had to be done by scratch. I'm not ashamed to say that it took me awhile to find the overall best method (best, for the particular goals, that is). If your method is very tedious, with tons of repeating code, then we're probably doing just about the same thing. ;-)Again, that ND you show looks very, very nice. I hope that custom navaid icons, vs. always the same old CustomDraw ones, will start to become more of the norm, because custom looks so much more authentic. And of course *variety* is just inherently nice....Scott

No problem. Just callin' it how I see it. I can't believe people think that companies such as yours would spend so much time and money on developing addons WITHOUT having strong legal footing.

Oh how cute...Okay I'll say it:"Yes, we should respect Microsoft's EULA's -- AND all other enunciations by Microsoft as to 3rd party developers' legal standing -- exactly as we respect 3rd party developers' "(I hope that little bit in the middle isn't a stick in your spokes.)

My reply doesn't sidestep anything. You seem like an octopus squirting ink. You're obfuscating, creating issues here from nothing, because, like anyone presented with facts unfavorable to his prior position, you seem all of a sudden to be a little less verbally discriminating and objective, and newly unable to distinguish significant factual differences. If, in your mind, a small 3rd party developer writing programs FOR a simulation platform is no different than the software behemoth creating the platform itself, then I'm probably unable to help you. I'm certainly not going to hold your hand and walk you back through each improper inferential leap you've taken in this thread to get us here, but do review it and notice how your "main issue" seems to have changed several times. That means something... not just retreat, but also that your indignation regarding the lack of an answer (to what you must know is a VERY disingenuous question) seems a little out of place.

The distinction seems pretty significant to me. Microsoft defines its own rights, just as the small 3rd party addon developers define their own. Microsoft has over the years pretty clearly taken a more open approach to the flightsim series, encouraging addons, releasing SDK's, obviously viewing the program more as a platform than as final product. They could have, at any moment, changed course and snatched those rights back up. They chose not to, but to instead allow others to develop payware. (Who developed the first payware addon? Did they ASK Microsoft? I don't know....) But how many 3rd party developers would there be if Microsoft had said "okay, we want 3rd parties to develop addons, but we won't allow them to assert or enforce basic EULA or copyright law"? There would be none. If you're going to encourage 3rd party developers, you've obviously got to give them the right to protect their own work. By the way, I see little PRACTICAL difference between "users may not modify this software" and "provider will not offer technical support to users who have modified this software." (One is just specifying a remedy for violation of a contract term, the other not.) Why would any small software company go after someone like Bob, or whomever was wanting to modify gau bitmaps, when there is no real economic gain in doing so?? It really only becomes a practical issue, I think, if someone were to start redistributing the modified work.

Bob, with respect, you and mgh are making yourselves look like you have very little respect for the hard work of others, work you derive a fair amount of pleasure from. That's not an indictment at all, but just an observation of the "feel" of this thread.As to the legalities... I practiced law for 4 years, and though I was not involved in intellectual property matters, I can pretty much guarantee that the short excerpts from statutes and the few cites to case-law that have appeared here are FAR from the whole story. It is tremendously more complex -- I'm sure there are cases interpreting cases interpreting the relevant statutory sections, cases from different federal circuits seeming to contradict, and so on -- but an attorney specializing in this area would know this law. Well. It would not be complex to him / her. So there are many pitfalls to the type of arm-chair lawyering seen in this thread. Consider: no one has even mentioned whether or not a copyright symbol is present, whether the work is registered, etc.... all relevant issues.(I'm taking this beyond the specific software asked about in this thread, because it seems others were quick to do so.)Beyond legalities, let's look at a simple hypothetical. What if the end user makes a modification to the program he "owns," then later on something seemingly unrelated goes wrong with the software? Then the end user needs to turn to the technical support resources of the software provider. Of course he never mentions his mod. And the problem with the software, the reason tech-support invested those hours, turns out to be related to that very modification made by the end user, made despite the requests of the software provider. End user would never have predicted that his small modification had larger ramifications, as he deemed himself familiar enough with the program's guts, its config files, etc. But he has just essentially taken money from the pocket of the software provider and put it into his own. Now, that scenario makes most sense and is more costly with a more substantial piece of software than is typically produced for FSX, but it is relevant. It's been relevant to pay and freeware flightsim developers. It's been relevant to freeware I've released, and is one of the reasons I've turned more to payware. It would be stupid for anyone in this hobby to ignore the tug away from freeware that many developers ultimately feel, and the reasons for it. These kinds of things -- expectations of support for your software which you later find out has been modified -- are one decent sized reason.

Wow. That quoted statement is breathtaking in its insanity. Heheh. Anyway, this all goes back to the "is it worth it" and "hassle factor" ideas I mentioned above. Just because Mr. Copyright Holder chooses not to pursue damages, that does not mean that the very same action of the violator is now magically transformed to "justifiable" status. Right? It's not at all like your motor tort analogy, the car backing out.On to the practical side.... Many on this board, including myself, make a portion of their income by selling the rights to software they've created. And, also like myself, I can pretty much guarantee you that each of them has watched in horror as the product they've toiled over is passed effortlessly back in forth on the free... uhm... "file sharing" sites. To watch this, with hands tied, is a REALLY crappy feeling. You feel disrespected, even almost violated in a small way. It may not be true that each copy that's downloaded there would've been a sale, but it's true that every 2nd, 4th, 8th, 16th, or whatever copy would've been. It's real money out of your pocket. It's like just standing there helplessly watching people take cash from your wallet. And there is no remedy, realistically speaking.I share all that not for sympathy (hahah ;-) , but to maybe put some of what's been in this thread into perspective. Consider who is here: many people who are stolen from pretty much on a daily basis. So if words by the "strict copyright" crowd seem reactionary or heavy-handed, I think we all know why. It does feel like "the winter of our discontent" around the boards the last many months. It feels like the thieves are winning. To me it does. So, just sayin', maybe this isn't the best place to ask about circumventing copy protection. ;-)My take: GAU files are compiled, thus not meant to be edited, and I strongly suspect the EULA explicitly prevents that. Still, the main purpose of the EULA is to prevent BIG things like the file sharing scenario I mentioned above. But, editing 1 GAU file for personal use and never distributing it, that is WAY down on the scale of relative wrongs. But it is still technically a violation to some EULA's.

I think the issue many are having is that your definition of "illegal" seems to be too restrictive. To be illegal means to be "not legal." (Yes, I did feel silly saying that. ;-) There are criminal laws. There are civil laws. Violating either is "illegal." If I'm reading you correctly, you seem to be saying that it's only illegal if there's a criminal law involved?? And it's true that criminal law would come into play only if substantial copying and financial gain / financial loss were present, as I think you said. But still there is civil.As to what would make copying "illegal," your reiterated question, I would say that doing what some have suggested in this thread would violate either basic copyright law, or the valid CONTRACT between software licensor and the end user. Contract law is civil law just like copyright, is taken very seriously (obviously), and it is "illegal" to violate contractual principles. This is true in any modern, civilized country.Regardless... civil... criminal... being smacked on the a$$ by either arm of the law can seriously ruin a person's life.The reality of it all, as some have said, is really... what's it worth to pursue a wrong? I hope we can all agree that, just because a harm is small enough that the person wronged couldn't justify the attorney's fees, hassle, time, etc... that doesn't make the action any more or less wrong. (It seems, somehow, that it needs to be said.) There's an example of this type of thing going on right now in our very hobby, involving a very well known company that makes VERY top notch products. And the entity (individual) that claims it was wronged by that company is out over 2K dollars... which still just is not enough to justify the hassle. I mean, lawyers cost $250 per hour or more. Add different countries of domicile, and forget it... just can't even be pursued, practically. I worked in the insurance law industry for awhile, and I can tell you that exploitative people or entities get away with quite a bit just knowing that the harm they're doing won't quite breach the potential plaintiff's "hassle factor" level. It's a shame, because that hassle factor could be several thousands of dollars. People work hard. This stuff needs to be taken seriously. Something doesn't need to be a CRIMINAL offense for it to be "illegal." I think that's maybe a big part of this disagreement?

If you want the curves to be really nice and smooth, I'd do a quadratic regression on your data points. There should be info online, probably even pages that'll do that for you. You'd probably have to combine two equations, however: one between 0 and 25, and one from 25 through 100, since the two sides of your distorted parabola sound nowhere near symmetrical. Still, this should not be hard, as you can just invent 1 extra point (if needed) in order to flatten each curve's slope out right around 25... meaning the two curves will fit your data very well, and will fit together nicely right at 25% load. In fact, hold on... Found an applet that does this. These two equations below meet at x=25 (25% load) pretty nicely, and they're nice smooth curves running through (or very close to) all of your data points.y = .56x^2 - 28x + 2100 [for 0 to 25]y = .056x^2 + 0.2x + 1715 [for 25 to 100]x is load %y is RPMThe only issue, really, is... is that much precision in the load/rpm relationship needed so badly as to justify the horsepower needed for those continual computations? Your call, obviously, but I'd be interested to see if that actually gets you what you're looking for.Oh, in case I copied a number wrong or whatever, you can redo the regression process at: http://science.kennesaw.edu/~plaval/applets/QRegression.htmlScott

Roman:Combos of Acceleration World or Body or Velocity World or Body variables work just fine. That they are each in one spatial dimension only is no problem. A little trig gets you where you need to be. I've compared both methods ( sampling delta IAS over delta time, vs. the "pure" variable ), and the only difference is a lack of spiking and twitching with the "real" variables... a significant advantage. You can make the math more and more complex to get the speed trend value more and more precise, but it is not ever off by a factor of 10. (Am I reading you correctly????) In fact, using only ACCELERATION BODY Z and VELOCITY BODY Z (I think it's Z, IIRC) gets you very, very close 99% of the time. And the remaining 1% is a non-issue for civil aviation, unless something very bad is already happening. ;-)Thanks for your comments,Scott

Hi. For a speed trend indicator, has anyone besides me had better luck with the ACCELERATION BODY or ACCELERATION WORLD variables? As far as I can see, change in speed over change in time is the same thing whether taken directly from a variable, or computed manually, as here. I've personally found that directly using the acceleration variables eliminates spiking and jitteriness. I don't remember if those variables are available for FS9 though, and I no longer have that SDK installed.

Interesting, thanks. I didn't delve in too deep, but I did spend a bit of time looking at "AutogenDescriptions.xml". I see that there are much smaller trees available, from young to very old for many types. I guess the problem, then, is not the "size" of the autogen trees per se, but instead the way the sim very frequently places huge trees in inappropriate places. Too high of a concentration of the "very old" types I guess. I wonder if editing down some of the max scale and min scale numbers would do what it sounds like they'd do?

I disagree with your statement about the autogen tree size. I haven't messed around with the autogen SDK, so am not sure how the tree sizes appear in those editors, but inside the sim the trees definitely are rendered too tall -- quite often 100, even 200 feet.

In addition to what others have said, there is also the issue that ground handling physics during crosswinds are not handled very well in the MSFS series. The issue does seem to have gotten somewhat better in FSX, but there is still often noticeable "sliding," as if you have to partially maintain the crab angle on takeoff or rollout. There was a thread on here a year or two ago about this. Forget the title of it, but someone compared it to having runways that are like ice-skating rinks.

I would put TrackIR4 Pro in it's own category. Do anything you have to to keep that one as a "certainty." That product will TOTALLY revamp the way you fly and the way you feel about flying. No kidding there.Might want to check out Aerosoft's Bush Hawk. Eaglesoft's offerings are also very well done.

Lawrence, your "chill out" comment is well taken. My apologies to everyone. In rereading my response, it seems harsh, I know. I will just say that it wasn't only a response to things in this thread, but to a series of similar messages, including from other forums. And by far the largest element behind it is something that I had best not touch with a 10 foot pole at this point, because it would just sound like an accusation and would spiral towards unpleasantness. Best to just accept that some things are the way they are. There's no way anyone else reading all this might've known that though, and yes, you're right. I bought Falcon 4 the day it hit stores, by the way, and it's still great. I always loved it, the two Janes titles, and especially MiG Alley. Ahhh, the days of Papadoc and all those CSIPGFS personalities.... I've been doing the flight-sim thing since Falcon 3 and DOS memmaker boot disks, so am (hopefully) not entirely ignorant of what the combat side of flight simulation has to offer. I just prefer the flying to the fighting at this point. I guess there's only so much any one program can have, and to me it's seemed that the more of it that goes to combat, the less that can go towards flight. But it's all good. Everything's a compromise in one way or another. I guess the ideal would be if someone could just "plug" Falcon 4 into FSX as a module. Now THAT would be incredible. Completely impossible, but fun to think about.

Mower, why do you go **out of your way** (again) to pop into an unrelated thread to make a point that a certain FSX fighter jet is a "sad joke" just because it doesn't fire weapons? How many times can you miss the point? I could direct you to many posts on various forums where people say they've never had so much fun within MSFS as with that F-16. Is that not worth something? Or are you going to continue to tell those people that the fun they're having is not valid?You've done this same silly thing on other sites too, and you recently implied (in another post here on avsim) that you had been banned from some of them. I'm not sure, but what's the deal? Is it that you're so invested in some kind of online "virtual hotshot" fighter pilot identity that you think any simulation involving something OTHER THAN balls-to-the-wall bomb dropping is for wimps? Are you THAT invested in a make believe image, or that threatened by those who prefer emphasis on other things? You always seem to disappear from these kinds of threads at the point where someone asks you something like this: if the Air Force knocked on your door and said "wanna take an F-16 for a spin?", would you say NO simply because they wouldn't let you drop bombs? I think that question crystallizes how ridiculous your continual rant is. ("I'm Mower and I want everyone to know: Apples are not oranges. I repeat, apples ARE NOT oranges!") We know. They're different. But an apple is not a "sad joke" just because it's not an orange. When your Falcon 4 (and its avionics sim derivatives) can do the things that a true FLIGHT simulation like FSX can do, things much more fundamental to actual flight... or when a MSFS fighter jet is designed and advertised as a substitute for those combat sims, THEN maybe your point will have a place. Until then, your message is obvious, redundant, and most importantly rude and unnecessarily negative. And I personally will write it off as the uninformed opinion of a kid. (Given your M.O., yes, I'm assuming you're a kid.)

Just so that the record is clear and so that no one searching for "realistic autogen size" or whatever is misled, I think it's important to point out that changing the zoom does not accomplish what it is I mentioned. What is needed, the item that's on my wish list, is for the RELATIVE size of the autogen trees to change, and to change to a more realistic size. It's about scale. Zoom may change the apparent size of the trees on your monitor, that is true, but it changes the size of ALL scenery by that same amount. So a 200 ft. tree would still be a 200 ft. tree, and the faulty speed, distance and height cues it feeds into would still be present, no matter what the zoom. What I am talking about is more fundamental and cannot be cured by zoom. I am simply suggesting that everything be put at the same scale -- aircraft, houses, buildings, trees, boats, automobiles, etc.... Because right now, as surprising as it is, they are not.

Sorry, but I attached the wrong pic. This is not the one I thought it was, and it's too late to edit the message. A pic more like what I meant this to be is down below.

What a sad thing. I even numbered the points for you above, and, in your magnificence, felt it not even worthy to tell anyone where any of that was wrong? If those are your credentials (which I have some doubt about, given the quality of and lack of insight in your writing, and given some of the more childish things I've seen), then I'd expect to have heard a little something educational and informative by now. (Others are "credentialed," too, by the way. And if those really ARE yours, then congratulations. That is genuinely impressive. But I hope you can look back at the thread and see how someone might have some doubts.) Oh, yes, the picture I uploaded in an above message is not the one I thought it was, so it can be ignored. I'll attach now something similar to what I thought I was attaching before. Attached is the picture that's most similar to the projection FSX uses, because it's the only one that can keep the horizon flat at non-0 pitches, and the only one that forces the same effects on the nearby ground textures when changing heading as in slew mode. And this is the projection that is MOST kind to what I'd guess are your arguments. And its flaws are still obvious. But it doesn't matter, because the problem I'm speaking of is in ALL of the projections. It has to be. But you already know that.... So please, honestly, take 5 minutes to explain how (from within the confines of a conversation that's been about the best *perspective*, with the least geometric distortion) you come to the conclusion that the image that's attached is NOT distorted? How is it that its perspective is as objectively valid as any other, as you've said? I really would like to know this.What about the zenith-nadir problem? Not worth addressing? It's actually a pretty tight and reasonable argument. If my prior words didn't do it, I could post pics of several different projections, and we could discuss what aspect's most distorted in each. But that's probably useless, since you said there are some that have no distortion at all, yet fail to explain it. Would the "no distortion" you claim not be the computer monitor equivalent of a map maker who invents a projection that maintains accurate distance, direction, size, shape and area ALL at the same time?If you start pulling the zenith and nadir towards each other like that, something's just gotta give. Is that not intuitive?(Oh, and by the way, my "pseudo-science" is currently being used by thousands of happy flight-simmers in a product that may very well be among the most successful flight-sim products of the year. And a BIG part of my contribution to it required considerable grasp of the "pseudo-sciences" of trigonometry, fields of view, zooming and scenery arcs, etc... many of the very things we're discussing in this thread.) http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194678.jpg

>>zoom, the relationship between nearby pixels is changing in>a>>way that is non-linear. Scenery objects are not just moved.>>That is right, they change in a non-linear way. But the whole>perspective is non-linear and I would never call an ordinary>perspective a 'distortion' but you may develop your own>terminology if you fancy so. If I am standing at the base of>Sears tower in Chicago looking up the building appears to be>shrinking with height - fine, you may call it a distortion but>I won't.>>Michael J.>http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpgOh my god.... You can't respond with anything illuminating or relevant, so you resort to THIS? The building gets smaller as it gets farther away? What a shame. Anyway, see my post number 78. And no, there is no need for any new terms. To put it as simply as possible, I use the word perspective in this context to mean "how things look from a certain vantage point"... i.e., are straight edges being drawn curved, are right angles being drawn at angles that are not right, and so on. And when is say "non-linear," well, I think that pretty clearly means curved, whether talking about a mathematical function or the rendering of a scene. I don't know how that could've been misunderstood, unless intentionally. You took what was probably a knowingly false interpretation of what I said, quoted it in part and out of context, and then heroically contradicted it. All while it was plainly obvious that what I was talking about had nothing to do with a simplistic example like yours.Looking at this post of yours and a couple of others from around the same time... do you always get this annoyed and this prone to disguised cheap shots when someone disagrees with you? I've taken the time to be precise and specific. You've taken the time to... what exactly, just say "nope, nuh-uh"??? Michal... maybe I'm not getting what it is you're saying. I must not be. Can you explain maybe a little more? How is it that the image in post #78 is not distorted, in the context of a discussion as to accurate perspective? And where does your assumption that a given perspective is "ordinary" come from? What defines that?

Give me a break Michal, and quit quoting me out of context and then resorting to your straw-men, as you've now done twice. Instead, maybe try not to take our disagreement so personally, so that we can all actually THINK clearly about what's happening when we zoom out.Here's what's happening. And I'll spare you the math, I'll keep it concise (maybe!), and I'll number it, so that we can be precise about where we disagree, and also so that nothing's taken or quoted out of context. I hope you'll tell me which parts of the following you have a problem with. Or explain how things in the attached picture are not distorted, within the concept of "perspective."1) At zoom 1, straight and level, the simulator's zenith and nadir are reasonably close to my ACTUAL zenith and nadir, as I sit here in my chair. I have an average sized monitor and I sit at an average distance from it. The zeniths and nadirs match, for the most part, because at zoom 1, the sim degree on my monitor is actually very close in size to the real world degree I see when I look past that monitor. I've shown this above. 2) Now, as I start jabbing at that minus sign to zoom out, straying from zoom 1, let's focus for now only on what's happening to the simulator's virtual zenith and nadir. Where are they going as we zoom out? They're being tugged forward, more and more tightly in towards the front of my monitor. They're now artificially close to each other, in the extreme. This means that, if straight and level in the sim, I can look a little bit above my monitor and see where the sim zenith would be, if the monitor were taller. And I can glance down just a bit underneath it and that's where my virtual nadir has moved to. Disagree?3) Now I've zoomed out to 0.3, and my virtual zenith and nadir are portrayed as only about 60 real world degrees apart, not 180 (and only a little above and below my monitor's edges). So then the lines of right ascension (the astronomical equivalent of longitude) do and MUST leave their sim world horizon at angles that look to us to be other than 90 degrees. Correct? And since we're talking about *perspective*, I think that the "looks to us" part is important. Those azimuth lines, if we can just call them that, are now all appearing to fall awkwardly inward towards the vertical center of my monitor, warping more and more as they get closer to the poles... warping because that's the ONLY way they can arrive at that artificial zoom 0.3 zenith and nadir they're always a slave to.***I've attached a picture of a similarly distorted azimuthal grid from another program, at about the same field of view as FSX at zoom 0.3. I know of no way to get FSX to display its coordinate system, but it must be very close to this at the same field of view. You can see that this program's showing ~105 degrees. FSX and Stellarium are not identical, obviously, and they may rely upon different types of projections. But there is no projection that can avoid the fundamental distortion that is so obvious at a zoom / field of view setting that comes close to pulling the zenith and nadir onto the screen at the same time.4) Anyway... since those lines of azimuth are now clearly distorted at zoom 0.3, and since they're the yardstick in the sim and in the real world as to what it means to be vertical, the very concept of vertical has been distorted, as we see it on our monitor. Objects that would normally be rendered as perfectly vertical, like those longitude lines or like buildings or trees, will now HAVE TO BE rendered so that they're not necessarily appearing to be at right angles to the sim horizon, but instead so that their edges follow the lines of longitude or azimuth or right ascension or whatever helps someone understand the lines we're speaking of. See the attached picture. And those lines, the very grid of the scenery engine, appear to be falling obviously and unnaturally inward. And so does everything else. It's all warped. Artificial lines of azimuth lead to artificial vertical lines, which mean there is geometric distortion.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194662.jpg

The number of degrees of scenery displayed at zoom 1 HAS changed between FSX and FS9. This bolsters what I'm saying. It doesn't detract from it. There is a range of realistic and possible values for the field of view at zoom 1 that the program could be made to take, but the programmer must choose ONE value to be the baseline for the projection. That is the zoom 1 value. All other values get progressively more distorted. The image we see could never be truly 100% distortion free, but the sim can be programmed to be *least* geometrically distorted at a setting of X degrees. And X might be 45, or 35, or 25, but the programmer has to pick A standard that is set equal to zoom 1. This is why I've called that setting the "fulcrum" of the display engine. There is nothing inherently magical about "33.5," the number of horizontal degrees displayed in FSX at zoom 1. There IS something important about the zoom of 1.0 though. And 1.0 and 33.5 are fundamentally intertwined in FSX. So, though 33.5 is not inherently special, it is also not arbitrary, and I've mentioned why I think the change was made from Fs9 to FSX, and also why, for most simmers, it's probably superior to the FS9 zoom "fulcrum" of (IIRC)about 45 degrees.I think that what is most telling here is the answer to this question: Is there a lens or a scenery display engine or whatever that could get all 360 degrees of scenery onto the monitor without massive geometric distortion? If there's not, and I don't think there is, then why not one that could do 350, or 340, or 270, or 180? I think it's because the value chosen needs to be at least *close* to the field of view that the typical monitor occupies for the typical simmer. Otherwise right angles would rarely be displayed as right angles.But Geofa, you're right. There are good reasons to stray from zoom 1 while flying. I think I said that in my last post. But this had turned into a discussion about accurate perspective and zoom, and that's what I was trying to answer. It should not be a secret. Perspective and distortion are "best" at zoom 1... not because I have some kind of twisted affection for it (wild man that I am, I'll sometimes go down to zoom 0.8 ;-), but because of the math.