Very cool SmartDeck

[Boston]

Beautiful and nice human interface. This would make a nice TouchBuddy app.



Website: SmartDeck® Integrated Flight Controls & Display System

Highlights: www.smartdeck.com/videos/highlights.wmv
Introducing SmartDeck: www.smartdeck.com/videos/smartdeck_intro.wmv
NBAA SmartDeck unveiling: www.smartdeck.com/videos/nbaa_unveiling.wmv
The SmartDeck Story: www.smartdeck.com/videos/smartdeck_story.wmv
NBAA SmartDeck launch overview: http://www.as.l-3com.com/products/vi...SDOverview.wmv

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

That is cool Boston.

Unfortunatly I don't think that would work with TB. That gets its data from a bunch of devices from the aircraft. TB gets its data from different games. Not all games export data. But for the ones that do, TB would need to have separate Plugins written for each game.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one standard output format for all games so you could write just one app to import any available data? That would make things much easier on the back-end. Then you would just have to customize the display part of the apps.

[Boston]

Thanks Wild Bill,

There were two reasons I chose the Microsoft Flight Simulator forum to post in. First obviously the SmartDeck is a General Aviation glass cockpit solution. But second FSX has a new multiplayer feature that extends the “Shared Skies” experience. “Shared Cockpit” allows two players to be in the same cockpit at the same time. That means that telemetry must be shared over the Internet so that the gauges are in sync for both players.

I found some Microsoft Technet blogs but I am not a programmer:

What is "Shared Cockpit"? The panel and gauge side of MS Flight Simulator : What is "Shared Cockpit"?

How do I share data between C++ gauges in a shared cockpit scenario? The panel and gauge side of MS Flight Simulator : How do I share data between C++ gauges in a shared cockpit scenario?

The artwork and DLLs appear to be in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Gauges folder.


It would be nice if sim developers got on the same page


.

[blaster454]

That's pretty cool . Flight systems are progressing rapidly...just take a look at a 90's cockpit compared to today.

It would be nice to do this in TB. It was my original intention to make an FSX profile which took data from the sim and had interactive displays, at least for the radio and navigation avionics. Unfortunately, the FSX SDK and SimConnect turned out to be a tad confusing for me. I am not a C programmer but have worked in Visual Basic (on the PC) and other languages in the past and am familiar with general programming. The FSX SDK was hard to read and harder to understand, for me . There is a lot of potential there but it might be a bit before the FSX data interface becomes familiar enough...it has been slow to be adopted and people seem to be keeping their solutions close to the chest.

I had to drop the TB scene for a while but want to get it back in gear again. I understand that Zorlac is probably burned out but we have a pretty robust app to work with (just look at some of the neat stuff WBK has done ). I have just gotten my LockOn running with TB again and want to put together something for FSX (simpler than I had previously planned).

This type of data transfer is probably not available yet, but I'm willing to bet it won't be a lot longer before we see it. I'm surprised one of the sim developers never picked up on TB...every time I reach over and punch a button and see the sim respond, I get a warm feeling ...everyone needs to get to that state .

[touch-bu]

Glad to have you back Blaster :P

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Originally Posted by blaster454

..... but have worked in Visual Basic (on the PC) and other languages in the past and am familiar with general programming. The FSX SDK was hard to read and harder to understand, for me .

I don't know anything about the SDK, but I wrote the Toolkit and all of my Plugins in VB6, so I could help you get started there if you want. And also look at the SDK a little to see how it works.

My Plugins are just a VB6 Web Control, like a Button, textbox, or combobox. Since IE can display these ActiveX controls, I just made bigger/fancier 'controls' with more stuff in them.

WBK

[blaster454]

Originally Posted by Wild.Bill.Kelso

I don't know anything about the SDK, but I wrote the Toolkit and all of my Plugins in VB6, so I could help you get started there if you want. And also look at the SDK a little to see how it works.

My Plugins are just a VB6 Web Control, like a Button, textbox, or combobox. Since IE can display these ActiveX controls, I just made bigger/fancier 'controls' with more stuff in them.

WBK

Thanks, Bill. I've got C# VS Express installed and just need to get into it. It's apparently the "language of choice" for using the FSX SDK. I started using Quick Basic a few zillion years ago and moved into VB as it was introduced. It was always a neat language for getting quick results with a decent user interface in Windows...in the minimum time. I always thought of it as an engineer's language . I studied Fortran & Pascal in school but never really used them. I played with C and then C++ because there are some HW things you can't do without them...but I need a good 2-week hiatus in a padded room to get classes and instancing into this thick skull of mine. Guess I'll try that with C# first. Appreciate the offer...I may take you up on some hints when I get into it. I still think there's a lot to be gained from the new FSX SDK (and maybe MS's new flight simulator API they are releasing if it doesn't cost an arm and a leg...or two).