I have finally resolved this
I have managed to now produce an external view that doesn't have the HUD projected on it, and I have also been able to use that same view to have a scalable viewport that projects the HUD where you want it and at the size you want it.
I had made it possible to run DCS Bios devices with the HUD View, where a known shortcoming would normally disable the device data output meaning some DCS Bios devices would not work with the HUD View. I detailed that here https://forum.dcs.world/topic/334998-hud-view-seems-to-disable-some-dcs-bios-devices-solved/
In addition, by adding this into the monitor setup .lua file
HUD =
{
x = 400;
y = -200;
width = 400;
height = 400;
}
I was able to make a user defined HUD viewport
The issue I then had was that when I combined the two solutions above, while the HUD View now projects the HUD the way I want it, somehow it also knocked out the other devices meaning that the BCS Bios devices are non functioning again unless I allowed the original HUD to be displayed as well. Essentially I had everything working as long as I accepted that there is a small HUD being rendered in addition to the large one I want.
The original HUD is called out in the HUD-init.lua file in this line
indicator_type = indicator_types.COLLIMATOR
purposes = {render_purpose.GENERAL,render_purpose.HUD_ONLY_VIEW}
However I replaced it with this
-- indicator_type = indicator_types.COLLIMATOR
-- purposes = {render_purpose.GENERAL,render_purpose.HUD_ONLY_VIEW}
effectively commenting out the lines. As a result, when in cockpit view I get the original HUD being rendered plus the large HUD created by the viewport, but switching to HUD_View only leaves the Viewport version, so now, finally I have a fully functional HUD View with an editable HUD projection that can me moved and scaled to suit your purposes. There is limited movement that you can perform with arrow keys to rotate or r-alt+r-shift+(arrow key) to slide to adjust the view but the HUD will stay fixed in the position you set in the monitor setup .lua file
So for anyone wanting a user defined HUD View, we finally can have it
Les
