I am deeply involved in making a cockpit for flying with MSFS 2020

[Hellmut1956]

As usual, I try to figure out what is the path to add or modify peripherals that are fed by the flight simulator. I have purchased a bunch of peripherals and by the time I get to the intended end working on my workshop and on setting up the cockpit. The first step in getting into the electronics so to understand protocols, and even more basically, how the flight simulator feeds data to a peripheral. On one side the simulator will supply data a peripheral needs and on the other side, the peripheral has to know how to request data and identify the data streamed to it. Looks like the data is transferred by PWM. I have a logic simulator that connects to the PC via USB and it can identify by itself the protocols the data transferred and report data filtering it to the protocol used.

I am opening this thread to make visible to forum members that I will get deeper into the electronics as they are used between flight simulator software and peripherals. Long-term building a cockpit that moves the seat on which I will be seated and do so also with the monitors. I am aware of that seeing the advances in VR and its ecosystem, i.e. the new goggle from Apple, fascinating things will become possible.

 

[kellys_eye]

I am aware of that seeing the advances in VR and its ecosystem, i.e. the new goggle from Apple, fascinating things will become possible.

I've always thought the implication of VR/3D goggles was going to 'bomb' because they haven't yet discovered a way to prevent motion sickness in the wearer.
Until they develop anti-gravity/inertia generators the user will always be subject to disconcerting anomalies between sight and sense. This may be lessened by the 'slowness' of change that a flight sim offers but will, nonetheless, always be an issue.

 

[Hellmut1956]

I had to deal with immersion and VR Googles about 25 years ago when dealing with real 3D sound. It was a tool developed by a small company in California for military use. It computed the sound to be supplied to the earphones by using a model of s standard human head and the reflections and deflections so to compute the sound supplied to each ear by computing what was a real human that was exposed to a sound source from any 3D location and the reflections of the room around that person and the material of which the walls of that room were going to be exposed to the virtual 3D sound source.

What was evident was if the PC was unable to follow the impact of sound and surroundings, too little PC performance, nausea 2 was the result. Once there was enough computing performance available the nausea was gone. But an even more dramatic side effect due to the performance available the image and the sense were out of sync placing the requirement on goggles that only could be supplied by the top head and eye tracker of those days the dangers to the user could lead to a sudden mental disorder. So inexpensive offering for end customers was not possible in those days.

So key to a VR goggle is to offer the right performance so what you see and what you hear has to be synced.

 

[kellys_eye]

So key to a VR goggle is to offer the right performance so what you see and what you hear has to be synced.

That will be true for a personal experience viewpoint - like a walk-and-talk experience through the pyramids - but when the body is subjected to simulated angles and thrust as found during flight it can't adapt to the lack of 'down' (gravity) hence the sickness issue. You can suffer similar issues travelling in a vehicle but not seeing where you're going.

Simple VR driving experiences - F1 sim - shows the same problem albeit to a lesser extent but you can't 'drive' a car properly unless you can 'feel' what it is doing.

VR will go the way of 3D TV - ok for a novelty intro to the world of VR but until artificial gravity is discovered the true VR experience will quickly lose its appeal.

Then again, a decent flight sim (cockpit etc) is a dream I can associate with. Not necessarily the F16 experience where 'down' becomes a real issue but for the passenger flight stuff, slow and easy, it would be a very addictive hobby and one I'd love to exploit myself. Another plan for the future.......... (like the 1,000's of others I have!)

 

[Delta Prime]

I had a great experience working with immersive technology troubleshooting & calibrating full flight simulators for the United States military. They invited all the technicians to go for a ride in the cockpit on their latest and greatest fighters
And they're the ones who gave me my call sign "Delta Prime" . They recommended we put on a Scopolamine transdermal patch to
prevent nausea and vomiting.

 

[kellys_eye]

And they're the ones who gave me my call sign "Delta Prime"

Delta Prime (or 'DP') has other meanings in today's world - but we don't need to know your personal habits.........

 

[Delta Prime]

Delta Prime (or 'DP') has other meanings in today's world - but we don't need to know your personal habits.........

Ouch! I must say all you incumbents are processing nicely. I am truly a bad example to emulate.