Jump to content

Long term AG Radar development plan


amalahama

Recommended Posts

Hi! Although Heatblur will live through DCS history books as the first company ever providing a functional AG radar in an addon, it's not more than a band aid using a back door in the SDK not originaly thought for that. It has notorious limitations, like the imposibility to detect any structure (including runways), any civilian traffic (including oil tankers) and mismatching radar returns (for example, showing forests and water bodies in exactly the same colors - it didn't happen in 1.5). Only certains vehicles can be detected (only because they are in some sort of definition list somewhere) without taking into account if they are under vegetation or behind a building.

 

It seems that Viggen's radar is very prone to changes on the visual core, which it's very undesirable in the long term. Plus, ED SDK will soon add a proper AG radar modelling that should overcome all these limitations and will be properly supported regardless major changes in the simulator.

 

Does HB have plans to move AG Radar to new technology when available? Or may they improve the AG radar when the F-14 is out? I would like to know HB's plans to keep up to date this very important sensor in the viggen in the months to come.



Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only plans we have in this area are to fix the forest visibility and any other similar bugs. We use normal, well established API functions, but they're leveraged in a way that doesn't completely kill your performance and concessions have to be made. We are limited by density of raycasts, hence why for example units are handled seperately.

 

We have no idea of what ED's ground radar will look like, both visually, functionality wise nor API. Deciding arbitrarily to implement whatever their solution will be (likely still at great time investment) would be silly, especially if it's ill suited to the Vig's ground radar. At best, I could see us pulling some functionality from their implementation to enhance our own, but again, this totally depends on their results. This could potentially lead to better sharpness (where realistic for the Viggen's radar) and building raycast occlusion.


Edited by Cobra847

Nicholas Dackard

 

Founder & Lead Artist

Heatblur Simulations

 

https://www.facebook.com/heatblur/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To add to Cobra's answer above:

 

 

You have to remember that this is not a synthetic aperture radar, it's not able to or even designed to see buildings, etc. It's made for finding ships at sea primarily. That being said we intend to revise the implementation somewhat and improve object detection as well as how it handles some of the new ground types (Forests, etc.). But keep in mind that sans the new ground types our implementation looks very much like the videos and pictures you can find of the radar display :)

 

 

Best

Daniel

 

 

PS. it's very much possible to see airfields with the current implementation under the right circumstances!

/Daniel

 

Heatblur Simulations

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys, then we know the radar will get some love eventually. Dare we ask for a rough time-frame? Before Viggen is taken out of early access?

Helicopters and Viggen

DCS 1.5.7 and OpenBeta

Win7 Pro 64bit

i7-3820 3.60GHz

P9X79 Pro

32GB

GTX 670 2GB

VG278H + a Dell

PFT Lynx

TrackIR 5

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to hear the Viggen is getting some love even if within the limits of reality and with no exact promises on timeframe :smilewink:

 

Even with the new ground radar requiring developer time to learn, HB would have the first mover advantage with the Viggen. They could decide to implement a new aircraft with the new radar and benefit from the experience for a Viggen update later down the road; or they could use the Viggen as a platform for experimenting with the system and then go forward with that knowledge gained.


Edited by Varis

SA-342 Ka-50 Mi-8 AJS-37 F-18 M2000C AV-8B-N/A Mig-15bis CA --- How to learn DCS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have to remember that this is not a synthetic aperture radar, it's not able to or even designed to see buildings, etc. It's made for finding ships at sea primarily. That being said we intend to revise the implementation somewhat and improve object detection as well as how it handles some of the new ground types (Forests, etc.). But keep in mind that sans the new ground types our implementation looks very much like the videos and pictures you can find of the radar display :)

 

 

Best

Daniel

 

 

PS. it's very much possible to see airfields with the current implementation under the right circumstances!

 

Although the current representation looks and feels like the real Viggen radar, there are inherent problems with the raytracing technology you're using: it's based on terrain's landclasses to compute the radar return, which is fine if the radar has poor resolution, but with one notorious exception: big landmarks with strong radar returns, like large metallic bridges or hangars surronding runways that are absolutely missing on your rendition. It doesn't make sense to me that I can see a small smear showing a SAM site at 30 miles, but it's impossible to detect a 1 km long metallic bridge 15 miles away. And bug reports often raised about this and that unit not shown in the radar unveil another flaw: the dependence on internal lists to show units, leaving ground traffic aside - because ED defined it as a different entity out of the generic unit class.

 

And I'm sorry but I'm unable to see runways - I can see the different landclass surronding the airport yes, but actual runways and taxiways no way - can anybody prove me wrong?

 

P.S -> Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to throw your work away and start from scratch, but there are issues, important ones, that deserves attention, care and some imagination to solve, but that should not be forgotten, for realism and practicity sake.


Edited by amalahama



Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have problems to se buildings and vehicles on land. Ships show up on the radar quite good.

 

The runways show up, but they are linked to the navigation system, not a radar return itself. If you refer to the circle and straight line that is. :) Other than that I can't se any runways or roads on the radar. And I'm not sure it is suppose to do that. It's not very hightech in to day terms.

Regards

FanOfALF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The runways show up, but they are linked to the navigation system, not a radar return itself. If you refer to the circle and straight line that is. :) Other than that I can't se any runways or roads on the radar. And I'm not sure it is suppose to do that. It's not very hightech in to day terms.

It is not a matter of tech, but of physics. A flat road or runway reflects radar waves with a different strength than, say, grass or trees. This makes it possible, also for the viggen, to show runways. It does depend on the beamwidth and pulse length used by the radar. Shorter pulses give better resolution, so choose the short pulse option for the radar. The beamwidth is fixed for the radar, but in cross range the resolution is proportional to the distance, so you will see more detail closer by. The issue with the current implementation is that the reflectivity of surfaces is not always correct, making some distinct surfaces to appear similarly on the radar screen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

And I'm sorry but I'm unable to see runways - I can see the different landclass surronding the airport yes, but actual runways and taxiways no way - can anybody prove me wrong?

 

P.S -> Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to throw your work away and start from scratch, but there are issues, important ones, that deserves attention, care and some imagination to solve, but that should not be forgotten, for realism and practicity sake.

 

 

Same here, I cannot see runways. All I ever see is ships

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At short range I can make out Runways and taxiways, but Its at 10-15km max.

 

I agree that large object radar returns would be great, especially for Nav. However, from what the Devs are saying, it isn't really a feature of the real Viggen to pick up individual vehicles etc amongst ground clutter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need som help here. I've been doing A-G strikes lately, så I didn't use the radar so often. Now I started to do some anti-ship strikes, but the radar won't show any ships. I can't even se the differens between land and sea anymore. I did before. Can't figure out what's wrong. I tried to adjust radar brightness, MKR Gain, LIN/LOG...nothin helps. Could i be something in my graphic settings? Or is it something with the latest updates. But it seems that you guys can make it work.

Regards

FanOfALF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, one of the fixes we hope to do it to make it see large structures like bridges :)

 

 

And regarding vehicles on land, those would likely be really hard to see irl.

 

 

/D

 

Cool thanks! Really looking forward to it. Will we be able to detect oil tankers as well?

 

At short range I can make out Runways and taxiways, but Its at 10-15km max.

 

I agree that large object radar returns would be great, especially for Nav. However, from what the Devs are saying, it isn't really a feature of the real Viggen to pick up individual vehicles etc amongst ground clutter.

 

Pictures plz. I've been trying and even when almost overflying runways I haven't been able to make them out from the radar scope.



Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the good news here is that developers has not abandoned the Viggen, but will revisit it when/if the technology and means to get it improved in areas that are lacking now, gets better, like Eagle Dynamics doing something amazing with radar API that could improve Viggen radar.

 

That I think is the good part that if something can be improved more realistic, it is considered and done if possible. Anything else I don't think anyone can ask...

i7-8700k, 32GB 2666Mhz DDR4, 2x 2080S SLI 8GB, Oculus Rift S.

i7-8700k, 16GB 2666Mhz DDR4, 1080Ti 11GB, 27" 4K, 65" HDR 4K.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need som help here. I've been doing A-G strikes lately, så I didn't use the radar so often. Now I started to do some anti-ship strikes, but the radar won't show any ships. I can't even se the differens between land and sea anymore. I did before. Can't figure out what's wrong. I tried to adjust radar brightness, MKR Gain, LIN/LOG...nothin helps. Could i be something in my graphic settings? Or is it something with the latest updates. But it seems that you guys can make it work.

 

Radar antenna elevation? Beats me, working normally for me atleast in the current stable build... :huh: Do you have beta?

A-10C Warthog | AJS-37 Viggen | F-5E Tiger II | Mig-15bis | MiG-19P Farmer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need som help here. I've been doing A-G strikes lately, så I didn't use the radar so often. Now I started to do some anti-ship strikes, but the radar won't show any ships. I can't even se the differens between land and sea anymore. I did before. Can't figure out what's wrong. I tried to adjust radar brightness, MKR Gain, LIN/LOG...nothin helps. Could i be something in my graphic settings? Or is it something with the latest updates. But it seems that you guys can make it work.

That's odd. It works fine for me here on the latest beta version. It sounds like your Gain might not be adjusted correctly, but you said you tested that, so I don't know what's wrong. Maybe a screenshot would help.

But this is a bit off topic here, as this thread is about the future development of the radar. I recommend to create a new thread for this problem.

Intel i7-12700K @ 8x5GHz+4x3.8GHz + 32 GB DDR5 RAM + Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 (8 GB VRAM) + M.2 SSD + Windows 10 64Bit

 

DCS Panavia Tornado (IDS) really needs to be a thing!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Radar antenna elevation? Beats me, working normally for me atleast in the current stable build... :huh: Do you have beta?

 

Have both Open Beta and Stable…can't get it to work in any of them. Antenna elevation I have tried, no luck :-(

Regards

FanOfALF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's odd. It works fine for me here on the latest beta version. It sounds like your Gain might not be adjusted correctly, but you said you tested that, so I don't know what's wrong. Maybe a screenshot would help.

But this is a bit off topic here, as this thread is about the future development of the radar. I recommend to create a new thread for this problem.

 

Thanks for answering. Tried to adjust the Gain, but no luck. I have it assign to one of my axis on my HOTAS throttle. Could maybe be a problem.

 

Sorry about the off topic, will try a little more and maybe get back in a new thread with more data. :-)

Regards

FanOfALF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Strange. I have no problem detecting even single units, as long as they arent Air Defence category, or stuck inside trees or urban area. Set the radar to LIN, and adjusted Gain in below shot from a sweep over Caucasus Senaki airfield. 4 single units (BTR-80) can been seen around waypoint circle, thats parked in each corner of airfield on.

2nd shot is including a radar export, showing a single unit out in the fields. Export actually shows more nuances.

Screen_181013_113748.thumb.png.f4cf4299ac3964acaacfea0f6b532aec.png

Screen_181012_142258.thumb.png.c3a590783291f821c20550d9f86aa878.png

- Jack of many DCS modules, master of none.

- Personal wishlist: F-15A, F-4S Phantom II, JAS 39A Gripen, SAAB 35 Draken, F-104 Starfighter, Panavia Tornado IDS.

 

| Windows 11 | i5-12400 | 64Gb DDR4 | RTX 3080 | 2x M.2 | 27" 1440p | Rift CV1 | Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS | MFG Crosswind pedals |

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank's all for your replies. I sorted it up, and you led me in the right direction. I had Gain assign to an axis (slider) on my HOTAS Throttle. That messed up my radar. I deleted that binding och now the radar works well again. I even se the ships better now than before. Thanks knock-knock for the pictures. I will experiment a little to work out the land units as well. Once again, thanks all!

Regards

FanOfALF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...