Collimated display build thread...

[wledzian]

FSX, fully aligned and edge-blended. Hopefully, we only have to do that once; I now understand why the visual techs get paid so much to do a projector alignment.

Personal note: There's no such thing as "leaning in to get a closer view" on a collimated display.

[geneb]

\o/

For those curious, that's the default FSX Grumman Goose and I was sitting in Friday Harbor at the time.

Wayne flew from Boeing Field/Renton (?) to Friday Harbor and I flew from there to Arlington. The flight really brought home the fact that I've forgotten most of the stuff I learned about navigation. Time to drag out the textbook again. *sigh*

"Hey look! It's a golf course!" *laughs*

g.

[ANDYSMITH]

The most amazing DIY project I have ever seen. Absolutely amazing.

Andy

spent last week sailing the san juans with my son.

[wledzian]

-cringes-
I just remembered I'll have to do at least one more alignment and blend on that setup to handle programs which use only a single window.
Then I'll have to do it all over again once mine is built.

[geneb]

I'll have to give NFS a shot and see how it does. You'd think because you blended the projector outputs that it wouldn't be different on a per-application basis.

I'm going to stop off at KPLU on the way home to pick up an updated sectional.

g.

[Nick1150]

That is f a n t a s t i c !!!!!

I must admit that this is a very most difficult Project I have ever seen in mc.org

[wledzian]

The edge-blending pulls image from the area adjacent to the 'channel' area as source for the blend region. Since we're using multiple FSX windows, the edge-blending would wind up exposing the window borders. To get around that, I made use of the countermap to pull image only from further within each window, so that the edge-blend never gets to the border. The result is that each source window has a larger FOV than normal, but there's no vertical black line in the blended image. Additionally, the countermap is intended for three individual windows, and won't look anywhere near correct with a single source image.


With a single source image, I'll need to re-align and re-blend with the standard grid, and apply a countermap designed for whatever distortion is present in the source. If you take the existing map and turn off the countermapping (make a copy of the config first!), it should be a good start.

[arnolde]

If I recall correctly, you mentioned that none of the suppliers you contacted would sell you rolls wider than 56" in affordable quantities. May I ask what the smallest roll of >100" wide would cost, and which supplier?

[geneb]

From what I've been told, you can buy from L3, Rockwell-Collins and CAE. Expect to pay in the high five to low six figures. I don't know what length rolls they sell are.

g.

[arnolde]

Those are Simulator/Visual manufacturers.
I happen to know you can get a professional mirror re-skinned incl. material and labour for under 50000$.
There must be mylar suppliers that can offer rolls wide enough (10' or so?) for reasonable (4 digit or low 5-digit) prices.