[Flightgear-devel] Window glass reflection effects

[Renk T. <tho...@jy...>]

I have a request to aircraft developers.

I was trying the DR400 yesterday, and I liked the plane as such quite well - but the canopy glass effect spoiled all my fun. The reflection effects are just way too strong. I have a similar problem with the cockpit windows of the CRJ700 which also dull the colors of the environment rather strongly.

I would ask that such effects are implemented optionally. I would like to get the direct view outside without any glass effect. I was seriously tempted to open ac3d and simply remove the offending window...

The reason for this has to do with perception: Glass may be dirty and have lots of reflections, but we don't actually 'see' that. When looking through a window, the eyes are focused for distance, whereas the glass stains and reflections are near, so they create blurred images on the retina with different depth information (i.e. different apparent locations in both eyes). As a result, unless the window is very dirty, the visual processing in the brain removes dirt and reflections very efficiently - in essence we are able to look 'through' the dirt.

Now, when a realistic amount of dirt and reflections is rendered in front of the outside scene on a flat screen, the brain lacks the depth information and the eyes always focus on the screen, and  as a result perception can not do this trick. So a seemingly realistic amount of reflection on-screen end up simulating a very dirty and distorting glass which I would never fly with in the first place - I'd clean my cockpit window before takeoff.

So if implemented at all, I think the effect has to be very subtle, and in my opinion only a minority of planes get this 'right'. Thus, please consider it good practice to allow people to clean their windows and switch all glass effects off.

Thanks,

* Thorsten