Captains Eyepoint?

[Drewsta]

Hi Guys, that common problem when running a projector for visuals is that from the Captains seat and indeed the copilots seat, it looks like the aircraft is always crabbing (sideways) alittle. I know alot of you guys have ajusted your settings to compensate for this. I have the zoom at .50 which seems to fit my setup at the moment the best. Whats a good setting for the captains eyepoint and which one do you change? Also I believe you can change the heading of the view aswell. I was thinking perhaps ajusting the captains view across to the left a bit mixed with the heading also ajusted slightly to the left.

Any thoughts on this one guys?

Thanks a bunch
Drewsta

[ANDYSMITH]

Hi there, I too have struggled in my mind about this problem and here is what I came up with. The only way I could get acceptable views from BOTH seats was to angle the seats inward so that when you are sitting in the seat, Captain or copilot, you are pointing directly at the center of the screen. Or at the spot where the runway centerline is on the screen. I know it doesn't sound right to sit in the cockpit at an angle but the view is right if you fly final and look at the runway centerline, you are "lined up" and NOT crabbing to the side like you describe. Now if you are flying IFR (not looking out the window) then you are flying the needles anyway and sitting angled compared to the panel does not couse any problems.
You can reduce the angle by mounting the screen as far away from the sim as possible.

Andy Smith

[ddimm]

I run FS9 and the one thing I did for the crabbing was to use Active Camera to set up the view for the pilot and copilot. I just hit the button on the yoke and it centers to that person.

[ANDYSMITH]

I run FS9 and the one thing I did for the crabbing was to use Active Camera to set up the view for the pilot and copilot. I just hit the button on the yoke and it centers to that person.

nice idea!!!

Andy Smith

[Jordan Farmer]

Well, i havnt tried this myself, but if you use certain keyboard commands in FS you can move the camera view around in the VC, i cant remember the commands but you can find them in the settings i think! So, if you centred the VC eyepoint to the very centre of your projector, would that work? I honestly dont understand optics or visual systems, this is a shot in the dark if im honest :p Hope you can find a viable solution anyway!

[No Longer Active]

Can I just ask this please?

If you were to use just 2 LCD monitors for your visuals, when you are lined up at the bottom of the run way, would the LCD bezels cutout your view of the runway, and same for approaching, final etc. If so being the pilot wouldn't you be just slightly to the left anyway because never does the pilot land exactly on the centre line......?

Thanks,

Alex

[ChrisKLAS]

I compromised on mine and adjusted the viewpoint to look right from the Captain's seat. I normally allow visitors to fly from the left seat and I can deal with the skewed view from the right side. When I'm flying myself, I'm obviously in the left seat.

The view anomaly can be seen in this video as the photographer moves the camera around on short final:

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[Sean Nixon]

Thanks for posting Chris. I always enjoy watching your vids!

To be frank, I'd the 'anomaly' in your video is so minor to be un-noticeable. I wonder if too much is made of the effect to the point people go looking for it?

I only say this as I have a 3 projector setup and I can honestly say I do not notice any odd sensations whichever side I fly from. Clive, another 737 builder on here that lives close to me has a 2 projector setup which I flew last weekend. We spoke about the crab issue then and both agreed that it was not noticeable on his setup either. If I put my head in the centre, I lose sight of the centreline markings behind the windscreen post. Move left, the line moves slightly left, move right, the line moves slightly right and I always appear to be sitting on the correct side of it. Landing from either seat feels the same. What am I missing here?

Sean

[Nick1150]

Hi to all,

I just installed a second CH yoke for the F/O, and did a test flight from the F/O side.... to be honest I didn't know about this "anomaly", and so long I was thinking that the eyepoint is set to the center of the cockpit (stupid me :-? )... Anyway the so called "dragging" is VERY obvious to my setup (1 projector) and I am trying now for an hour to play around with the eyepoint configuration in FS9 but it only lets me to go up or down, not left and right !!!

Has anyone tried to configure the eyepoint in the center of the cockpit and see the results ?

If yes how this can be done ?

Thanks in advance,

[choffmann]

Nick,

as far as I remember the lateral offset of the eyepoint can only be done in virtual cockpit mode. I believe, this is achieved by simply relocating the panels to the left or right, but FS does not adjust the outer scenery.
This is true for FS9, I don´t know about FSX.
The dragging effect in FS has not been "solved" yet, AFAIK, neither by Microsoft nor any other party.

BTW: Is there anybody here who knows, if X-plane has the dreaded dragging effect as well?

Chris

[Nick1150]

Thanks Chris,

And you are right of course !!!!

I could make left or right only in the VC view... It was too late so I could not make a test flight. At least I could try.

So in other words, everyone is flying with the eyepoint set for the CPT side ?

If we set the eyepoint in the center (if that is doable) what is the feeling ?

Thanks again,

Nick

[nax228]

I heard that setting the eyepoint to reight between the fuel cutoff levers will work good...

[Nick1150]

I heard that setting the eyepoint to reight between the fuel cutoff levers will work good...Hopefully I will try it this afternoon :)

[nax228]

The stewardess eyepoint should be slightly to the left, facing down...

[Nick1150]

The stewardess eyepoint should be slightly to the left, facing down...exactly.... the stewardess eyepoint should always be ON her CAPTAIN :D

[Matt Olieman]

I just had a thought..... yes there was smoke coming out of my ears...... ;)

I wonder if software such as Nthusim would help solve this issue. Actually what we're trying to accomplish is; nose wheel on center line, center infinity move to center of pilot POV.

Just a thought off the top of my head :)

Matt Olieman

[AchillesP]

Hi,

This problem is very easy to solve. It was the first think I did when I became a cockpitbuilder.

So, the solution is the bellow

1.) Locate the aircraft.cfg file of the aircraft you fly and open it with notepad.
2.) Locate the eyepoint entry at views section
3.) Set your visuals to see the engines from the cockpit view.
4.) Adjust the second value of eyepoint and check the position 3.
5.) Use a reference point (I use the both engines)
6.) When you adjust the second value and you are able to see that the distance of engines are at the same distance from the end of the screen, that means you have adjusted the eyepoint exactly to the center of the cockpit.

With this solution, I always be able to have the runway between my feets in approach mode from pilot or copilot seat, and I always land at the center of the runway.

[rjvcarvalho]

I already have ilustrated the solution to this problem on another thread:

http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/showthread.php/21255-Crabbing-effect-on-views?highlight=

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6204/normalfull.jpg
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1069/0full.jpg

Click on the images to see the change i made to the aircraft file.