General Question Best way to animate a 3d ADI ball

[Moach]

well, title says all, but a little image always helps clarify, so look:

before anything else, let me thank dr. Martin for the great ADI texture :thumbup:

anyways, as you can see, that thing is a ball, an actual 3d sphere with Martins texture wrapped around it

now i need to make it into a gyro indicator...

my first thought was to have a set of animation to spin it on each XYZ axis... but i'm not sure on how that would correspond to the input coordinates i want displayed... and i don't want a gimbal lock or a non-commutative-operation error messing up my stuff

for as you can see on the glareshield panel, there's a 5-stop knob that selects the following operation modes for the Gyro-ball:

OFF = disabled mode -- i've coded that one already, works perfecly :lol:

PT/BK = Pitch/Bank mode, works exactly like a regular aircraft ADI, you know it...

AFV = Atmospheric Flight Vector -- same as PT/BK but also rotates horizontally to show yaw deviation

ORB = Orbit mode --same as AFV, but orients towards your orbit prograde vector instead

ABS = Absolute direction mode -- locks on to the current attitude (when you press "mark") and shows your deviation from that direction



anyways, i was thinking of using a manual animation to work out the rotation matrix for that thing... but i found the documentation a bit scarce on that matter... should i try that? or should i use parented animations for each gimbal axis?

just looking for pointers... any input however uninsightful is still appreciated

 

[martins]

If you download the most recent orbiter beta, you'll find my code for animating the ADI ball in the Shuttle-A sources. Maybe that helps.

Note that I am using the ADI ball currently in the 2D panel, not in the VC, so before rendering the ball it is projected on a flat surface. If you want to use yours in a VC, simply leave out the projection part.

Note also that the Shuttle-A supports two different ADI modes:

1. -180 <= pitch <= 180 and -90 <= yaw <= 90
2. -180 <= yaw <= 180 and -90 <= pitch <= 90

The transformations for the two modes are different, so make sure to pick the one corresponding to your ADI layout.

Edit: Nice cockpit, by the way. What is it?

 

[N_Molson]

Nice cockpit, by the way. What is it?

The impressive G42-Starliner :thumbup:

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=21197

 

[Wishbone]

Not to highjack the thread, but the location of the ADI ball is not ergonomic at all. At this height the eye is quickly fatigued.

 

[Moach]

Not to highjack the thread, but the location of the ADI ball is not ergonomic at all. At this height the eye is quickly fatigued.

well then... it's a backup instrument it's not there to be the center of attention...

but as the dr. said, since we already have it coded, i could just as well turn it into an MFD, so you could have a projected ADI ball right in front of you

thanks again, Martin!