Monitor set up, Flat or tilted

[pcride]

HI, just stumbled across this site as I have started to build my own sim. I am wondering how my monitor set up should be. Ideally I would like 3 screens (24 in) using a Matrox control head, then I would have maybe 1 or 2 smaller monitors underneath for all the gauges etc...

Many sims I have seen have the monitors flat but others are tilted, like an actual cockpit. I guess it would be the angled tilt for the windshield.

Wondering how this would work with LCDs, normally titling a monitor you can't see it that well as the monitor gets black.

What has everyone done here?

Thanks,
PC

[bussgarfield]

I can't speak for anyone else but I have 3 22" monitors set up flat and level. I would think if you tried to tilt them to the angle of the windscreen you would lose clarity.

Gary

[Sean Nixon]

I cant remember seeing anyone using monitors for the outside view tilting them.

[my737sim]

Mine are not tilted forward or backward, but they are wrapped around the windshield.

Top View

/---\

I don't lose any clarity as the angle is not that much and the viewing area of the screens is quite large.

I have always felt this "encloses" me in the cockpit.

If you were looking at the screens from the side they are straight up and down.

|

Matt

[pcride]

Thanks for the responses, It seems that some sims appear to have it tilted, maybe its just an illusion.

[Ronson2k9]

Pretty much. Remember your monitor isn't a 'plain' that is it doesn't act like a window. It's a way to view the windows in the aircraft. Think of it this way. If you were in a airplane cockpit and you placed a clear glass frame in front of you you would still see all the windows and so on. That's the way it is in the sim. The monitor isn't a window rather it lets you see the windows. The 3D effect is created in modeling of the world and that is modeled with the view out of your eye not from the aircraft window forward.

What some people have done is built a physical aircraft window that could be tilted or even fitted from an actual plane. This window has no display properties at all but is merely there to add ambiance to the cockpit. It helps to enclose the cockpit so outside sounds and inside sounds are where they would be in an actual plane. It could also add a bit of refracted distortion that would be the same as if you were in an actual cockpit. However all the display is generated outside of that window either projected or LCD.

Hope that helps and welcome on board...
Ron

[pcride]

Thanks again, here are 2 videos where it appears they are tilted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpt6JC4Qks&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnx-m9RQ1KU&feature=related

[Bernie]

Hi Pcride,

The two videos that you have posted are using projectors not LCD's. The tilting is actually the fabricated aircraft window. I use 5 x LCD's for my views and apart from having them set at angles of 30 Degrees from the front monitor so they wrap around like a cockpit would, they are not tilted (Top Forward) but it can give a slightly crisper picture if is. (relative to your seated positon)

Kind Regards

Bernie.