FSX Project questions

[jangraafland]

Hi there,
Along with some friends we are building an flight simulator with e real Cessna 152 cockpit.We re-assembled the cockpit with USB devices from Simkits and linked it to Microsoft FSX. So far everything is working just fine.
Next step is projection on a curved screen! A difficult issue for us. In this topic I attached the setup for our system. My main question is , if it is possible to project on a screen displayed in the drawing when I purchased the Nthusim Plus software? As you can see, the curving in the screen is horizontal en vertical!
Can you also tell me where I have to look for choosing a good projector? I saw the BenQ710ST (because of the good price), but I do not know if this is a good option in our setup.
We will use an Matrox TripleHead2Go module for the projectors. Edge blending is a word I find on the forum many times, and as far as I could see it is an necessary option. Is this provided by the Matrox module, or by the projector? The graphic cards what is inside our pc is an Radeon HD7750, do we need special options provided by any graphic cards when we use multiple screens? Is this graphic card usable for our setup?
As you can read, there are still some questions about the topic “projecting”. I hope someone can give me some answers before we decide to purchase stuff (....for many €) en we even don’t know exactly how everything is working!
Thanks a lot.

[jangraafland]

I forgot the attachment!

[BHawthorne]

Greetings, later tonight I'll be better able to give you a more detailed answer. Edge blending is useful but it's not critical to the build. For the first two years of my builds I did edge butting of my projections instead of blending them.

[BHawthorne]

I apologize for the delay in getting back with you. Your setup sounds like a fun build. A Cessna 152 would be a fun build because Cessna is located where I live in Wichita and the cruising speed of the aircraft would make for ideal speed for VFR photoreal scenery in FSX/Prepar3d. I just wish I could find a 152 fuselage in my area to do something like that. They build them around here but noone has a local boneyard where I could get a fuselage cost effectively.

To get back on topic to answer your questions, yes Nthusim can account for proper pre-warping to both horizontal and vertical curvature to ensure everything is properly aligned to the screen.

I have no personal experience with the BenQ W710ST, but it looks to be similar in mounting distance to the Optoma GT700/GT720/GT750 because it shows a lens throw of between 0.719-0.79 and the Optoma projectors are 0.72. Is this an old projector because I don't see it listed anywhere in Projector Calculator Pro? That makes it a bit more problematic for me to assist in figuring up mounting distances and locations. Really the main criteria for picking a projector is lens throw between 0.49 and 0.72 so it can project a large image within a short distance allowing you clearance for your simulator without anything getting in the way obscuring the projection.

Edge blending is achieved through the pre-warping software, not through any of the hardware. Nthusim Plus does the edge blending and pre-warping in it's configuration. It's why the utility exists. As you already plan on using a Matrox TH2G, you don't need to do spanning via Eyefinity with the 7750. The 7750 should allow for Eyefinity mode but you don't need it as you're using a Matrox TH2G. Be mindful that when we speak of "blending mode" we need to account for 15% overlap of the projections at the edges so we can do those blends. In your diagram you are doing edge butting, not 15% overlap for edge blending. 3840x800 is a lot of pixels to process in FSX with a single 7750. I would suggest no less than a 7870 or a 7950 card in order to keep your FPS at a decent rate. The 7750 will work for you but it won't be efficient at it.

Instead of three projectors I might suggest doing it with only two projectors and spend the difference in cost on a more powerful video card. For the last few years my builds have been dual projector. For example in the Setups subforum I have my current 2013 build and it does 180 degrees FOV with only two projectors. There are some trade offs using two vs three. It is easier for a video card to push 2560x800 than 3840x800. With two projectors you get a taller field of view vs three projectors. The tradeoff is that the pixel density and pixel count is not as much.

[jangraafland]

Hi Brad,
Here you can find the link to the Projector Calculator Pro for the BenQ 710ST projector. Hopefully you can something say more about the projector with this information.
http://www.projectorcentral.com/BenQ-W7 ... or-pro.htm

[BHawthorne]

Yes, that helps a lot. Do you have overall dimensions for the screen width you want and what field of view you would like to cover?

[jangraafland]

In the attachment (Benq W710ST.PNG) you can find the throw distance I found on the website of Benq and I suppose it is a good starting-point. I chose the option 4:3 as aspect ratio.
In the second attachment (screen dimensions.PNG) you can see the overall dimensions from our screen. Our goal is to realize a 180 degrees view. It is not necessary to project from ceiling to the floor. Goal is to project from floor to a distance as high as possible. I suppose we can arrange this by using 2 projectors instead of three?! In the examples, I calculated the projection with 2 projectors as suggested. Both with a width around 3.65 meter. Throwing distance would be around 3.50 meters. Only question now is if this distance is still possible when we put the cockpit in his position!
When we chose to use 2 projectors we can also save money by using an Matrox DualHead2Go module. We will try the setup with the Radeon 7750 graphic card, but we will keep your advice in mind if something is not working as we want.
Do you have enough information now to give more advice?

[BHawthorne]

Yep, that gives me enough to work off of. I'll post some insight on the design in the next day or so.

[BHawthorne]

To follow up I've not forgotten about your questions and will address it sometime this weekend. I got backlogged on projects and haven't been able to sit down and give your design questions time yet to detail out answers.

[jangraafland]

Hi Brad, any news about our project?