#3 interfacing to flight simulator

[Anonymous]

Hi,

we have implemented an UAV related MFD using j661 and beanshell code and would now like to do a test flight in some simulator. After reading the forum, it seems that there is some flightgear support in the work? What is the latest state ? Is there a tutorial detailing how to set up and configure everything? Basically we would like to first test the MFD with some "real" data. If fligtgear doesn't work: what about other simulator like xplane or commercial? we have small budget and can buy new product if necessary, so the type of sim doesn't matter.

thank you very much, really cool project!

Xavier

[Hervé Girod]

Hello, and thanks!

For now it is possible to link a Client + Server to FlightGear Live, there is a feature called the DataProvider (see http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/j661/index.php?title=FGLiveProvider\) which allows to link a Client (and optionally a Server sharing the same configuration) to any source of data. The link is defined through an XML configuration file.

The FGLiveProvider (see http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/j661/index.php?title=FGLiveProvider for the tutorial, and look for FGLive in the contribs file directory) contains a DataProvider which is able to connect and use its data from a running instance of FlightGear.

Normally using the DataProvider with inputs and outputs defined as equations should work well, we use this feature a lot ourselves for example (see http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/j661/index.php?title=DataProvider_configuration#More_complex_example\). However the ARINC 661 parameters can also be fed with scripts, but we don't use it a lot for now so it may have bugs. But it should, so don't hesitate to ask if you have any problem, and we should be able to fix it quick if it is broken.

However you can also directly use the Client without using the Dataprovider feature, but in that case you will have to handle the connection between which script method to fire depending on what FlightGear parameter have changed yourself. If you want to have more informations about how scripting work, see here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/j661/index.php?title=Scripting_tutorial. Note that you can even use a Script without any GUI (see http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/j661/index.php?title=Embedded_Client for example).

Herve

PS: About XPlane you should be able to use it as it is possible with FlightGear, you will see that the amount of code in the Dataprovider used for FlightGear is indeed very small, you only need to be able to access datas / parameters from your sim, and you are done. The DataProvider framework take care of firing the right scripts / equations, and only if the relevant parameters have been modified.

Herve

[Nobody/Anonymous]

Herve, thank you very much for your response, we are going to look up the documentation you linked to and make sure to provide further feedback once new questions arise.

Thanks again for this cool project!

Xavier