Cylindrical / Spherical projection

[sinelnic]

Hi ED!

 

Are there any plans to include this features (Cylindrical/Spherical 'Dome' projection) in the rendering engine? If so, can you share them :smilewink:?

 

Thanks!

[kingneptune117]

  sinelnic said:

Hi ED!

 

Are there any plans to include this features (Cylindrical/Spherical 'Dome' projection) in the rendering engine? If so, can you share them :smilewink:?

 

Thanks!

 

thats amazingly complex, but i wouldnt be surprised since it was originally developed for the ANG

[metalnwood]

Or you could engage an optical engineer to make a lens for you, it would cost some money to set up the tooling and make it but for a couple of grand you could have a lens that will work with anything, not only getting the image correct but fixing focusing issues when projecting on to a curved surface.

 

I looked at this in the past and talked to some guys that have done some other optical designs but in the end decided I didn't have the space for it.

[kingneptune117]

  metalnwood said:

Or you could engage an optical engineer to make a lens for you, it would cost some money to set up the tooling and make it but for a couple of grand you could have a lens that will work with anything, not only getting the image correct but fixing focusing issues when projecting on to a curved surface.

 

I looked at this in the past and talked to some guys that have done some other optical designs but in the end decided I didn't have the space for it.

 

they probably charge way more than it should actually cost. All you would need is a convex lens, and a little adjusting to focus it correctly.

[metalnwood]

My guy was doing it for free but it does depend on some factors like making it for a long/short throw projector, is it cylindrical or spherical etc.

 

Either way, if you were trying to make an ultra nice set up it would be good to have it work on a lot of games.

 

I cant remember the price exactly, it could have been half that.

[Nate--IRL--]

  sinelnic said:

Hi ED!

 

Are there any plans to include this features (Cylindrical/Spherical 'Dome' projection) in the rendering engine? If so, can you share them :smilewink:?

 

Thanks!

 

I think if you set the FOV wide enough the engine provides the Fisheye render you are looking for, the only limitation would be that your projector could throw a projection that wide.

 

Edit:- It would appear I'm very wrong, see below

 

Nate

Edited July 16, 2010 by Nate--IRL--

[PeterP]

AFAIK DirectX is not able to draw bended polygons (Read it in an "Scientific American" article about how digital images are rendered in today's Direct X engines some time ago. ...that's also the main reason why everything is so stretched at the borders when you have a high FOV. see also: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/videos/edgedistort.php ) ... so It would need a gpu intensive post-processing of each frame.

And I doubt that ED will develop such application on their own when it is already done by others - for example:

 

http://immersaview.com/technology/sol7 :

  Quote

Sol7 is a software tool for geometric correction (warping) and edge blending of full screen real-time applications. The software is simply manipulated through interactive control points, aligning the projected display to the screen surface.

Whilst designed for curved screen displays and applications, Sol7 also aids the projector alignment process of non-planar and off-axis displays.

If you would like to obtain an evaluation version of the Sol7, please contact us.

or http://dev.eyevis.net/media/pdf/datenblatt/openWARP2_en.pdf

  Quote

The openWARP alignment tools feature a toolset for calibration of single- or multi-channel display systems, whose projection channels need geometry correction due to screen shape or projector placement. Calibration can be done for Geometry, Blending and Colour.

The toolset uses a camera-based approach to achieve calibration of geometry. Colour calibration can be done with an industry standard colorimeter, which can be integrated into the toolset. For the first time it is now possible to introduce measurable standards for the geometry correction.

 

Here is also an interesting thread of someone that uses SOL7 for his cylindrical projection at the FighterOps Forum:

http://www.fighterops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7965 -lots of interesting Info about this matter!

 

Hope that helps.

 

  sinelnic said:

Hi ED!

 

Are there any plans to include this features (Cylindrical/Spherical 'Dome' projection) in the rendering engine? If so, can you share them :smilewink:?

 

Thanks!

Edited July 16, 2010 by PeterP

[m0jo]

  PeterP said:

http://immersaview.com/technology/sol7

Sol 7 have been replaced by Nthusim few months ago: http://nthusim.com/

[metalnwood]

Yes, I know a couple of guys who have used the software and had good results.

 

A lens would be the hard way to go for triple monitors I would think, expense too.

 

I always wonder what the framerate hit is when transforming the screen every frame though.

[sinelnic]

Hi guys, extremely thankful for your responses.

Indeed PeterP, the wgf video you linked is the effect I´m trying to get rid of. The distortion, in DCS or FC2, is present not only in wide FOVs, but in all FOVs, only reduced. As it is my intention to use triple monitors with individual cameras for each, this ruins the alignment at the edges, badly.

 

Funnily enough, ARMA2 shows no edge distorion when using scope zoom, hence the effect CAN be obtained. Source games do show the distortion though.

 

I tried the link m0jo provided to Nthusim but sadly it will not work with my Win 7 64 bit for now.

 

Finally, apparently X-Plane provides the options I asked for, so maybe it´s not that crazy to expect them from DCS. I also remember a post from Wags about 6 months ago, about one of the 3rd party integration tools adding support for "various projection technologies" or similar.

 

En fin, if you have other suggestions I´m happy to try...

[Haggart]

On my search for our company described in the home cockpit threads), I encountered this program: http://fly.elise-ng.net/index.php/immersivedisplaylite2

Has somebody seen it allready? If not: it seems to be a generic image warping software for 3d rendered applications using directx & opengl and is according to the manual able to work together with nearly every application.

And: they've a 30-days-demo.

I don't have the possibility to test it at the moment, so either one of you guys perhaps could give it a try? ...or in a few days perhaps I'll take down one of our F-16-servers for "maintenance purposes" for a day and give it a run ;P