2 Place Collimated Display

[vyper883]

Oops,

that link should be

http://youtu.be/LrvjA6dFoPY

JW

Blown away......Completely blown away!

[xplanematt]

Well actually, I still have some flexibility on room size...I could probably squeeze a 22ft building into the spot I've picked out. As for the screen, it is actually going in the middle of the building...the way I have my current layout, there is a small shop/work area behind the screen, with a loft area above that, which overlooks the screen/sim area. This should be very helpful for hanging the Mylar.

Matt

[fsaviator]

Impressive. Looks great! The next time you fire it up can you give us a view from the pilots and copilots seat?

Warren

[super2277]

Amazed!
How many feet is the collimated display in diameter? And do you have any update on the sim?

[castle]

Amazed!
How many feet is the collimated display in diameter? And do you have any update on the sim?

The top is 16' 10" to the outside edge of the top frame and tapers inward to less than 15' at the base. The mirror itself is 16' at the equator and 12' 4" at the bottom.

Not much new to report, the system is up and running. Moved the vacuum to a outside enclosure to eliminate the noise. Once the mylar is drawn into position, the pump speed drops to around 60-70dB; moving it outside lowers it to a whisper.

Not much point in producing videos, the collimation and depth of field is totally lost, just another ho-hum simmer video. However, will find some time to post a video from the right seat once I'm satisfied with the edge blending.

Focus is now on the software; refining the app to build the warping mesh and playing with some techniques and algorithms for edge blending that run on the GPUs. With four HD projectors (1920x1080), two Nvidia cards (GT-640s), and an I7 processor, frame rates are averaging around 45-50 fps depending on how many features are active. Not bad.

Cheers
JW

[xplanematt]

Sounds like impressive frame rates for just running on one PC! I'm glad to hear about your screen dimensions....I am building a shop for my Sabreliner, and all I can do on width is about 20ft. My BP screen is about 10ft diameter, same as yours. Question: approximately what is your vertical distance from the pilot's viewpoint to the bottom of the screen? My Sabreliner is going on a trailer (at least, that's the plan so far) and I will be limited in how close it can be to the screen.

[castle]

The cockpit firewall starting at the base of the center column of the windscreen is one foot from the lower collar of the screen. You might want to review the physics of concave mirrors. You need to be inside one focal length in order to form a virtual image. The eye viewpoint is just a tad over 3.5 feet to the mirror, give or take a few inches.

obviously, you'll need to remove the nose section.

JW

[xplanematt]

Hmmm, I may have to re-think this display system. I realize I need to end up no further away than the focal point of the mirror, but the somewhat odd shape of this back-projection screen I have makes me a little unsure of how my mirror is going to look. It's a spherical section, but it looks like the curve changes towards the top (the angle becomes more extreme, or so it seems). Cutting the nose off is a no-go with this project....there is still a ton of intact original wiring, the 750VA instrument inverter and the #1 inverter, and all of the original avionics racks and connectors in the nose. Plus I want it to look good for shows.

Anyways, this means the pilot's viewpoint has to be a minimum of about 10ft from the screen. Surely I could just scale up the mirror size to get it out away from my nose. OTOH, the nose *does* slope down, and you say the bottom bow is only 1ft below the bottom of the windscreen....so I might be able to place the screen ABOVE the nose and bring it closer than 10ft.

I'm having trouble visualizing the geometry on your setup. How can your screen have a diameter of around 16ft, yet the pilot's viewpoint is only 3.5ft from the screen? Is it not a circular 180* shape?

Thanks for sharing all this info, it is hugely helpful for my own planning purposes. I am really pushing for a similar system, but I don't know if the building dimensions I have to work with are going to be enough for the size of my cockpit.

Matt

[castle]

Hmmm, I may have to re-think this display system. I realize I need to end up no further away than the focal point of the mirror, but the somewhat odd shape of this back-projection screen I have makes me a little unsure of how my mirror is going to look. It's a spherical section, but it looks like the curve changes towards the top (the angle becomes more extreme, or so it seems). Cutting the nose off is a no-go with this project....there is still a ton of intact original wiring, the 750VA instrument inverter and the #1 inverter, and all of the original avionics racks and connectors in the nose. Plus I want it to look good for shows.

Anyways, this means the pilot's viewpoint has to be a minimum of about 10ft from the screen. Surely I could just scale up the mirror size to get it out away from my nose. OTOH, the nose *does* slope down, and you say the bottom bow is only 1ft below the bottom of the windscreen....so I might be able to place the screen ABOVE the nose and bring it closer than 10ft.

I'm having trouble visualizing the geometry on your setup. How can your screen have a diameter of around 16ft, yet the pilot's viewpoint is only 3.5ft from the screen? Is it not a circular 180* shape?

Thanks for sharing all this info, it is hugely helpful for my own planning purposes. I am really pushing for a similar system, but I don't know if the building dimensions I have to work with are going to be enough for the size of my cockpit.

Matt

You can view the setup on some videos posted on youtube. Search on "737castle". If you go back through this thread you can also see some picsas it was being built. The screen is circular, but not a hemisphere

JW

[wledzian]

It's the screen, not the viewer, that needs to be within 1 focal length of the mirror. The optics design for Castle's mirror were based on the pilot separation, with the two pilots and the mirror centerpoint forming the three points of an equilateral triangle.