already reported FLIR maximum render distance of ~40nm

[MARLAN_]

Will this ever be increased? Even increasing to 50-60nm would do wonders for high altitude ingresses into a target area. Even just allowing the FLIR to view the terrain at a minimum would be nice, it's disorienting when the view is cut off.

[EricJ]

Wiki says the ATFLIR (I assume that's what you're using) is 40nm.

[MARLAN_]

I'm talking about how in DCS at around 43 miles or so the video feed just turns into a flat green wall as if you're looking at the edge of rendering (except you can see well beyond 40nm in game, so it's some sort of DCS FLIR issue), I'll send a picture in a bit.

[85th_Maverick]

2 hours ago, EricJ said:

Wiki says the ATFLIR (I assume that's what you're using) is 40nm.

Doesn't have anything to do with what he means. It's about the simulated graphics at more than 40nm on LANTIRN/FLIR which behave as the world ends beyond 40nm. Dunno about the real range limitation of such systems, but the subject is about the graphics rendering as it appears on FLIR/LANTIRN.

[EricJ]

Ahh gotcha, thanks.

[MARLAN_]

7 hours ago, EricJ said:

Wiki says the ATFLIR (I assume that's what you're using) is 40nm.

https://imgur.com/a/U4HhC5L

This is what I mean (I'm using a grey scale mod, but this applies without mods as well, easily checked)

[Hobel]

This not only applies to the TGP, but also to Contrail from Airplane/Rockets and other things that blop into the image from ~40nm.

example

 

[EricJ]

12 hours ago, MARLAN_ said:

https://imgur.com/a/U4HhC5L

This is what I mean (I'm using a grey scale mod, but this applies without mods as well, easily checked)

I see what you mean, that is weird.

[NineLine]

What is your visibility settings set to?

[Hobel]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb NineLine:

What is your visibility settings set to?

This has nothing to do with the setting.   ~43nm is the limit for TGP in DCS

[NineLine]

Please supply a track

Actually nevermind, I remember now that there has been some requests about adjusting this for pods.

[Hobel]

okay

 

TGP render Range 43nm.trk

[NineLine]

Yeah sorry, edited my post, I forgot I reported this a while back, I will bump it again, the TGP is limited by player draw distance I believe, even though zoom and such should be able to see farther.

[NineLine]

Actually second edit, it might be the limit of the actual pod, except that it doesnt look good because its a hard edge. I need to investigate a little more. My original report was more about smoothing out that hard edge. 

[MARLAN_]

I'd need to look into it further, but I can't imagine the camera feed just blacks out (even if it was smoothed) at ~40 NM.

I'll see if I can find better proof since this is just a hunch of course, but I can't be the only one who thinks it would be very weird for the camera feed to just stop at a specific range.

Edit: From our group's F-18 pilot: The ATFLIR can see to "infinity" meaning: there is no "no-render wall" that appears like in DCS. However, the image resolution is not high enough to make out "tactical" objects such as buildings/vehicles beyond those ranges. This is the same in either IR/TV, there just isn't enough resolution to make out small objects, but to be clear, you can still see, large objects such as geography, mountains, hills, etc.

Edited June 16, 2022 by MARLAN_

[NineLine]

To infinity? Is he a flat earther?  

No I think the only issue here is how the end of visibility is rendered not so much that it should be able to see forever. The wall needs to be tweaked for sure, I am sure mountains and such would still be visible, but as suggested nothing really detail wise. The no render wall is fine in that you shouldn't be picking up tanks from that far out. Also this might be something that is more suited to be tweaked when we do get the entire world.

[MARLAN_]

16 minutes ago, NineLine said:

To infinity? Is he a flat earther?  

No I think the only issue here is how the end of visibility is rendered not so much that it should be able to see forever. The wall needs to be tweaked for sure, I am sure mountains and such would still be visible, but as suggested nothing really detail wise. The no render wall is fine in that you shouldn't be picking up tanks from that far out. Also this might be something that is more suited to be tweaked when we do get the entire world.

I think I see what you're saying, of course the game wouldn't want to actually render out forever. I believe you guys use something similar for the normal "eye" vision where eventually everything in the distance fades away.

All I meant was, the ATFLIR should be able to "see" as far as our eyes normally do in the game (no 40nm wall), however picking out details like vehicles/etc. beyond 40nm wouldn't be possible due to resolution, not because of a "fog wall" or however else the game engine/devs decide to eventually cull visibility (but the usual eyeball "fog wall" would still apply of course, wouldn't make sense to render the entire map)

Excuse my lack of proper terminology on the game side lol. I think what you are saying, we are on the same idea!

[NineLine]

No 100% I agree the wall is something that wasnt really an issue way back when so it is something that needs updated for sure, of course balanced with performance, even with lower detail at distance, it could still have an impact, which might be what is being waited on to remove the "wall"

It was only the addition of the Hornet where we needed to add objects out to 40ish nm, so this is something that will need to change as well, eventually, but consider this reported.

[MARLAN_]

Awesome, thanks!

[okopanja]

Hi all, there is a limit on how far you can see the details with optical device. E.g. every telescope has angular resolution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution

It is totally possible to figure out what is the theoretical maximum for TGP.

In addition there is in astronomy a term called "seeing" used to describe the calmness of athmosphere. The more calm the better the image. As you can probably expect seeing on horizon is the worst possible.

As for eye sight in DCS, it does not model the limits of human eyesight since it allows you to zoom. Even then there is no image degradation. So avarage DCS player sees better than Chuck Yeager.

So your pilot is not aware of physics, or perhaps he is not quite the Chuck Yeager?

Edited June 16, 2022 by okopanja

[MARLAN_]

To clarify, I was paraphrasing his words, and I didn't mean the FLIR can see into the center of the universe, I meant that there should not be a 40nm wall where vision suddenly ends, that's why I said "infinity" in quotations. I already noted the loss of resolution over longer distances (e.g. over 40nm/50,000 ft)

I'll try to be more careful with my wording in the future, did not mean to create confusion that there was a belief the FLIR will have perfect resolution into infinity. I added some underlining and bolding to my original comment to make it clearer.

Edited June 16, 2022 by MARLAN_

[okopanja]

Hi Marlan, I agree there should not be a wall. The images should gradually degrade and become blurry with distance. The ED can figure out this from the dimensions of objective and educated gueses on construction of the optics/sensors, instead of simply cutting it with the wall.

GPUs should be able to simulate this, but performance impact is uknown to me.

[MARLAN_]

7 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Hi Marlan, I agree there should not be a wall. The images should gradually degrade and become blurry with distance. The ED can figure out this from the dimensions of objective and educated gueses on construction of the optics/sensors, instead of simply cutting it with the wall.

GPUs should be able to simulate this, but performance impact is uknown to me.

Agree 100%

[Tomas9970]

1 hour ago, okopanja said:

Hi all, there is a limit on how far you can see the details with optical device. E.g. every telescope has angular resolution.

It's simply 114 divided by lens diameter in mm and the result is in arc seconds. For example if you have a 76mm lens, that's 114/76 so objects with similar color have to be more than 1.5 arc seconds away from each other in order to not blend together.

 

On that note, there is also a good amount of light amplification that comes from having a large lens so maybe night CCD image should be brighter than what you can see with a naked eye. The amount of amplification is simply a ratio between surface area of the lens and surface area of 7mm circle (fully expanded eye pupil). For a 76mm lens, this is around 4536,5/38,5 so around 118x more light.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Tomas9970

[okopanja]

26 minutes ago, Tomas9970 said:

It's simply 114 divided by lens diameter in mm and the result is in arc seconds. For example if you have a 76mm lens, that's 114/76 so objects with similar color have to be more than 1.5 arc seconds away from each other in order to not blend together.

Based on your optics I would say this is a reflector telescope, in this case you would also have additional side effects expressed through elongation of "point" from center toward edges of the view. Furthermore these type usually requires collimation, I am not 100% convinced it would used for military optics. Most likely a refractor (the lenght of the pod is still good enough) or better one of the catadioptric would be more suitable.

30 minutes ago, Tomas9970 said:

On that note, there is also a good amount of light amplification that comes from having a large lens so maybe night CCD image should be brighter than what you can see with a naked eye. The amount of amplification is simply a ratio between surface area of the lens and surface area of 7mm circle (fully expanded eye pupil). For a 76mm lens, this is around 4536,5/38,5 so around 118x more light.

Also to note that size of the CCD pixel also matters at the end in what you can see as the result.