Bug fixes and SimConnect Improvements for 3D

[richbarry]

Simconnect debugging and improvement requests.



If Lockheed Martin P3D developers are monitoring these threads and responding to user requests for Simconnect bug fixes and improvements, I would like to make the following requests to fix some bugs and facilitate improvements to a split view 3D stereo P3D app I've been working on.
I'd be even happier if LM decided that Native 3D built into P3D based on my approach was a good idea and took it on as a further development for P3D, as the concept is straight forward and the result excellent.

Anyone else other than LM who has something useful to contribute, feel free to speak up.

There are SBS and Over-Under demo videos on Youtube illustrating the 3D
Over Under https://youtu.be/RMxHDd1M8wM
SBS http://youtu.be/QUUlSeFaJl8

1) View Linking Bug Fix. There is a bug in FSX that has persisted with P3D Simconnect. When you have 2+ of the same type of view open, and then Link the Views, P3D does not always immediately recognise all the same views that should be linked, and panning after linking may not result in panning of all the identical view types. Sometimes they may all pan, and at other times they won't. The clumsy work around is to activate each view in turn (click on it to Ctrl Tab to it), at which time P3D seems to say "hey, this one should be linked"
Same goes for changing a linked view to a different camera, after which it should no longer be linked, however it can stay linked to non similar views until you cycle through the views again.
I can provide a video of the behaviour if necessary.
Linking is critical to me for maintaining stereo view coordination for 3D.

2) A means of knowing what view is currently selected would be extremely helpful, to know when to trap commands and when to let them process normally, dependant on whether the active view is a 3D (compressed) view or a normal aspect view.

3) A means of selecting / putting the focus onto a named view would also be beneficial (although if I had item 2 above, I can Ctrl Tab through views until the required one is selected).
Head Tracking only sends 6DOF to the main view (usually View 00) and for whatever reason, even if another view is linked to View 00, the movements of View 00 don't translate to the other linked views unless View 00 has been clicked on or Ctrl Tabbed onto.
In P3D there isn't even a visual queue as to which view is currently selected. FSX has a white border on the selected view which at least meant you could examine pixels to determine what was selected.

4) Could you link Chase Altitude in Spot views? Currently with linked Spot views, if one is panned up or down, the other linked view(s) do not follow (hence 3D is lost).
Alternatively could the Chase Altitude of Spot view be added to the 6DOF data as the Y variable, and the Chase Distance as the Z variable? At present the XYZ component of a Spot view seems to be redundant.

5) The FIXED camera type seems to have a bug in it in that when CameraSetRelative6DofByName or Eyepoint modification keys are used to change X Y or Z offset, the camera interprets it as a movement speed, not position, starts moving in that direction and doesn't stop unless you send a 0. This is preventing setting eyepoint offsets for 3D

6) P3D_simconnect.MapClientEventToSimEvent(EVENT_ID.EVENT_ZoomIn, "ZOOM_IN") seems to zoom out and "ZOOM_OUT" appears to zoom in. Seems to be another bug.

7) After modifying the FOV of a view programatically, zoom does not function, which is fine and understandable, but is there a way of later resetting that view to normal FOV and normal zoom functionality?

8) I use SetCameraWindowSize to resize View 00 to fill half the available window and put a View 01 on the other half i.e. split screen stereo. Subsequently clicking on View 00 however, causes it to resize to the full window. Is it possible to provide a variable to switch this "refill window on click" behaviour on/off?

9) A ChangeViewByName would be helpful to enable changing of any view, not just the main view.

I can also provide v1.1 of the application if you want a look.
The v1.0 in the flight sim libraries is an older one which I unfortunately found had annoying bugs after uploading it.

Cheers

Richard

[Adam Breed]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your post. We will look into your bugs and feature requests and provide an update once we know more.

Regards,
Adam

[Clifton Crane]

Richard,

6) P3D_simconnect.MapClientEventToSimEvent(EVENT_ID.EVENT_ZoomIn, "ZOOM_IN") seems to zoom out and "ZOOM_OUT" appears to zoom in. Seems to be another bug.

You are correct, these events do seem to be backwards. We have opened a ticket to address the issue. For the time being, you may want to use "ZOOM_PLUS" and "ZOOM_MINUS", as these events are correctly mapped.