Colin S

Hugh is always dissapointed. Sorry, I had to do it. Defiance_Co, you're just about spot on. Also, my partner hasn't sent me any further files to process and I haven't heard from him in a while. For the time being, I'll focus on the cockpit. I have no intention of backing out of this stuff but for now we're taking a break. We'll hopefully have something to show for ourselves by the end of the summer. I'm working on a secret X-Plane project myself at the moment.

Development is currently suspended indefinitely. Any further notice will be posted here.

Update: Assistant Manager to the Rescue I'm glad I have a great AM at working. He's into building weird crap like me (right now he's building a police light bar for his car, only like 50% illegal in Canada). I go to him for quick advice on things, and he's not always too useful but this time he was very useful. I mentioned that I was building my own yoke and asked him what he thought I should be using for the telescoping components (the tubes that need to slide in an out of eachother and whatnot). I had been looking at PVC and conduit as those are the cheapest things out there, until he told me to check out aluminium tubing - such as that used in I have no idea where to find this stuff. Apparently the local Home Depot has some, and he guarantees that there are sizes that telescope. Well, fingers crossed. The Canada Day Long Weekend is coming up and my girlfriend and I have decided to hunker down in the dark (no A/C) and enjoy a weekend without the crazy tourists in Victoria, meaning I'll have time to get started on the panel and the yoke, or at least the initial structure of it. I've changed the design around a bit. since I'm going to lifting my monitor up a bit (and getting a second monitor, that's a whole other bag of noodles), I've decided to hell with optimizing the shaft length so it doesn't hit the laptop screen, the yoke will just be UNDER the laptop. Before I had to make the pitch range two and three quarter inches in both directions so the shaft wouldn't require a hole drilled through the screen of the IBM ThinkPad (poor little thing). Now I can make it up to one foot in each direction in the pitch axis. As a hint, that's not happening. I'm going for closer to three and half inches in both directions, similar to yokes you can buy from Saitek. One day I'll have a proper column yoke. No room for that yet. The story of the monitor is one I can't help but share. The Story of the Second Monitor (Maybe?) I work as a park attendant for BC Parks. Working in an "edge of the city" provincial park campground, you get everyone from happy little families with smiling, giggling kids on bikes to homeless people, as those with disabilities - including financial disability - stay for free in parks here. Anyways, as you can imagine, our first-come first-serve areas look a little like a tent city, and have the same kind of vibe. I have evicted three parties (two today). They always leave the weirdest junk behind (one left four unopened gallon bottles of ketchup). Today, the ones leaving left an entire tent, a garbage bag worth of clothes, a few crack pipes and a mysterious suitcase. Along with loads of garbage. Cleaning up, we made the deal that if you were willing to open the suitcase, you got to keep whatever you wanted inside it since opening a suitcase left behind after an eviction from a campground is kind of sketchy. I won a free X-BOX, large monitor, Blu-Ray player and surround sound system. All of it is mildly damaged old stuff, but it all works. Sadly I have to wait 24 hours for them to reclaim it before it's mind. I might be getting my very first gaming console at age twenty. And it will be just about as old. The monitor is rather large though, I didn't measure it. That is the saga of evicting people and getting free tech. As long as they don't return to claim it. Which I doubt they will, since they don't own a car. I will let you know tomorrow if I truly did win a free computer monitor or if all this hype simply evaporates.

.Heh... my girlfriend specifically told me that when we finally have a chance to move out of this apartment into a small house, I get the garage. The words "you should have a full cockpit" were involved from her end. To some that would be a marriage proposal Looking forward to the day I don't have to share an office with my girlfriend and I have room for a better rig. By that time VR might have gone so far that all I need is a porta-potty in the back yard

As a British Columbian, Mars Bomber has been part of my vocabulary for many years. I even got to see one in flight when I was younger. The era of the Martin Mars is over, and they are slowly retiring them to static display one by one. Like other iconic aircraft, there simply isn't the money to keep them going. These are the second largest flying boats ever built. The only bigger one didn't really "fly" per se. I got to see them parked at Sproat Lake on a trip to Tofino this past February, and their sheer size blew me away. Absolutely stunning. The tail was as tall as the surrounding old-growth forests. I wish one could go to my local museum, but there isn't even enough room on the property for the beast. One day I'll go to the museum where this beast sits with my kids and pull a "back in my day" with them. That will be strange. Anyways, this is quite interesting, and if anyone has $25000CAD lying around, do it. http://www.cheknews.ca/martin-mars-flight-can-25000-us-188734/

A picture. Evidence that I am actually doing something and that I have "invested" (ie stolen stuff from my parents' basement) in some hardware. Sorry for the weird location, I have my apartment desk torn apart for reorganization and cleaning in preparation for my bachelor's in elementary education. While to most this will be a "who cares" moment, to me it is a massive victory. I've been fighting a battle against Windows XP SP3 for two weeks to get this computer to acknowledge a local area connection. The machine is from early 2005, not 2007 as previously thought. It barely can anti-alias XHSI. As you can probably guess, I'll be splitting these (very much smaller than real life) displays into nine main sections with the MDF panel overlay when it's all carved up with the jigsaw and router: PFD, ND, EICAS, MFD (more on that later), Clock (intentionally in the wrong place, I have to make concessions), Master Caution/Warning, Annun., flaps, and gear indicators. The blank space on the right is where the anatomically incorrect gear lever will be. I hope to have a layer of plexiglass between the monitors and the idiot using them, but budget will dictate that. Now for the "more on that later" part of the post. Today's "Help Colin because he's confused:" The MFD in XHSI is brilliant, with the airport maps, flight surface monitoring, fuel, etc... but once I have my laptop locked in behind the panel and yoke for flight, I won't be able to switch what it's showing easily. The ND is lovely because it listens to X-Plane's opinion of what the ND should be showing, but the MFD has no in-sim equivalent, and thus has no in-sim switch or function to try to cling to for instructions. Here's the question in a nutshell: will it be possible for me to have a rotary selector switch (big words for Colin) switching what the MFD is displaying? If anyone has used XHSI in conjunction with a cockpit populated by physical switches, I'd love help with this. I have no programming knowledge and therefore not rip the program apart to try to establish a USB controller for this purpose. The Yoke I redesigned the yoke. I'll still be carving the "important" (handle) part of it out of MDF in two components to allow for wiring inside without damage to the exterior afterwards. That will be spray-painted black and will likely be the second most fun part of building this panel other than using it. However, I have changed the style of yoke from a true-to-reality floor-mounted pillar-and-yoke to a CH products style homebuilt yoke. Yes, I have a plan. No, I have no effin' clue if I can even get it close to working. I do, however, know that all the parts I need exist and that my concept is sound. The execution will just have to be pretty solid to make this fly (heh). I found a great website for the measurements of the yoke so that it will be as close to accurate as possible. The website may be from the 90s but the information is great and indispensable for cockpit builders: http://www.markuspilot.com/ Pedals You can throw tomatoes for this one. I'm using racing pedals for my rudder. I'm going to try to modify them to more closely resemble the 737 pedal layout (with the block in the middle), but sadly, there will be no way (yet) of having them move simultaneously in opposite directions. I've already taken them for a flight without modification, and they work quite well. It just doesn't quite click in the brain it does when you're using pedals that move opposite to one another. Maybe I'll come up with something for that. Conclusion This is a brief summary of what has changed or been added since my last post: Yoke redesigned from the ground up (and no longer comes up from the ground). Avionics now communicating with aircraft (makes them far more useful). I have a great relationship with the MFD but I fear that distance will make us come apart. Help. I have no idea what rudder pedals are. I need to make sure my avionics don't turn into the Star Field Win XP screensaver on short final (Just looked over and realized this). Thank you for reading, if you have. And thanks for any help in advance regarding XHSI. I am incapable of posting on X-Plane.org for support from the authors (where it's hosted) for reasons that belong in the rant section, not this one. And they are there. Just dig for them.

Mother of god that GUI... X-Plane, welcome to the 21st century I still hope we can access folder view, but that looks awesome. That stall alarm sent shivers up my neck. Hopefully this doesn't become a case of SOON(tm).

Gold. Thank you so much, this solves a problem that myself, two coworkers and my father (formerly an electrician), and a fourth year robotics student couldn't solve.

Thanks for the clarification - I'll check this out. I think I'll buy one just to mess around with it before I start trying to wire this into my panel. This is great, thank you so much Just for clarification, if I were to attach two lightbulbs to a rotary encoder, when I spun one way it would make one flash on and off with each detent, and the other way would make the other one flash with each detent? Also, when purchasing these, how does one determine the number of detents in a full rotation? Cheers, this has saved so much time and hassle. EDIT: I forgot to mention, yes, I already have a USB interface board, one that basically allows me to attach any old light switch to it and it will be a button. Will this be sufficient for communication with a rotary encoder or do I need something more complex than simple on-off buttons?

So will I be able to simply make one direction of spin one joystick button, and the other another? I do not intend to do any programing for this. If I can't find a simple solution I'll simply use an (ON)-OFF-(ON) switch, which would suck for realism but for function would be just fine.

I have a question for the community: I want a heading knob. This would require a nob that when turned one way would always click on one button (read is "increase heading by one degree) and the other way, immediately upon switching direction, would be "decrease heading by one degree." I can only find selector switches, with up to about ten positions to select from, and a stopper at each end. It would also mean that each opposite direction wouldn't be it's own button. I also need it to be infinite - you can spin 'til the world ends, since heading select knobs don't stop at some point. Suggestions on what this device is called would be much appreciated. Thank you

Those are some spectacular shots! Maybe I'll get you to do our screenshots for the future islands I'd love to see more of your 5K shots, those ones looked bloody amazing. Glad you solved the issue, I certainly wasn't expecting that! Something new for me every day Do see if your computer can bump the texture resolution up a few notches, it will make the scenery twice as high resolution every time. If I recall correctly, every decrease in the "texture quality" setting takes you down a full "texture notch;" that is, in X-Plane textures start (descending) at 4096, 2049, 1024, 512, 256, etc. Happy flying! Glad to see someone enjoying this. Just settling into my new job, but hopefully later this week the "plus" version will be underway along with Maui. Maui is huge, definitely won't be done before summer's end.

SMP = SkyMaxx, HP = Hawaii Photoreal. I'm guessing the real downer here is your Retina. I'm going to be blunt here: running X-Plane at 5K with only 2GB of VRAM is going to hurt. Big time. I recommend running at reduced screen resolution (or getting a second monitor with lower resolution) as running HD with high specs already puts a load on XP10. I can honestly say that unfortunately, as pretty as your system sounds, it looks like it needs an upgrade under the hood (jealous of the 5K though, that would be AMAZING for flying in 3D cockpits because you wouldn't have to zoom in to see every little word). I'm guessing your downfall is your low VRAM with a 5K monitor. I've heard of 4K with X-Plane and it runs slow, 5K would be difficult to optimize. If you do have a spare monitor, plug it in and disable your normal monitor to see if it helps. That will confirm my suspicions regarding the 5K monitor. Really just an issue of too heavy a truck with too little power. My medium-to-high end machine can render HP at nearly maxed out (HDR will destroy it though). Sorry mate

All I can really say is that Molokai is way bigger than Molokai. The file size alone should be testament to that. Also try disabling SMP if you have it, that can really eat frames alongside HP. Mostly, it's in the same rendering range as Lanai, so if you were originally happy with Lanai, that's not surprising. Then you install Niihau and are happy with the rendering ability for such a hig-res mesh and orthophoto. Then you go and put that super-hi-res mesh with dozens of ortho tiles right beside a pre-existing ortho area and two new airports... you've gone form a 2/10 drain on the GPU to an 8/10 drain with one scenery install. If you don't have a high-end system (I use a GTX780 and it barely cuts it), I recommend against having all the islands installed simultaneously. Another option is to not install the HD mesh (as that appears to be a major drain on performance), although this kind of defeats the purpose of the project. All I can say is that with rendering maxed out on a machine with 16GB RAM, 3GB VRAM, GTX780 and Quad 3.xx Intel processor (I forget which and I'm working from my "new" avionics laptop in setting up my home cockpit), I can run it smooth (with SMP rendering a few clouds) at around 20-30 FPS. And I mean nearly maxed out. Textures full, objects full, draw distance maxed. Give me your specs and a screenie of your settings (and a screenie with your destroyed framerates in the top corner if you know how) and I'll try to speculate a bit more I will try my best to help EDIT: As for the update to 1.0 (plus version), that could take a while longer - I got asked to start work a week earlier than anticipated because a brilliant co-worker broke their arm and it's a physically demanding provincial park job. I'm sitll on it though, but I'm taking some time to celebrate my admittance into the final three years of my uni program ("final three years" haha it will never be over in reality...)

So, after years of theorizing and speculating, I'm taking it one step further: I have a machine to run my "avionics." I'm building a very basic replica of a 737-800 cockpit (for the EADT X737, as it is my favourite aircraft). Here's what I have so far: ca. 2007 IBM ThinkPad, Intel Pentium M. No, I'm not running a slave copy of XP10 on this thing, its hard drive isn't even big enough for the demo installation. It is purely an avionics machine. 1 External cruddy old LG Display for the EICAS and the MFD (the layout is a bit weird compared to real life) XHSI. After hours upon hours of searching the internet for affordable or free all-in-one network instrument utilities, I settles for XHSI as it's glass displays are basically perfect for the panel of a 737. Tab S 8.4 as my CDU, the most money I'm going to blow on this project will be the $25-ish that it costs to buy the X-Plane flight computer app for Android. The panel will have a little place for my tablet to sit so that I wont have to use a mouse to click the keys. A big box of old switches and stuff. Four or Five Old Joysticks that I will be disassembling, soldering to the physical switches. Maybe and Arduino if I feel adventurous enough (or I run out of buttons on the cheap Value Village joysticks that I will otherwise be using as my USB buttons). Plywood and some basic power tools. I have an actual plan for this now, not just some ideas floating around in my head. Unfortunately, I start work on Monday (schedule unknown), so this could be a very tedious project to follow as I won't have much time at home this summer. I'm making some serious changes to the cockpit as I don't have room or money for every instrument and switch. The overhead will have a basic ignition system and light controls. I won't have any autopilot-dedicated LCDs (for altitude, heading, V/S, etc), instead I will just watch the indicators on the PFD when I spin those little knobs or push the switches - whatever I end up doing for that part. The autopilot console is really the biggest threat to this whole project, and I'll save it for last as by that point I may have decided to just buy an Arduino and a breadboard and rewire the entire thing, allowing for LCD number displays for the autopilot console. The screen layout uses the two screens. The IBM screen is pretty small, so it's the left hand display, allowing for that good old tapered panel shape. On it will be the Primary and Navigational displays, in that order. The LG monitor is slightly larger. For most of the bottom of it, I will have the EICAS and Multi-Function display side by side - a change from the actual layout as in the real 737 the "MFD" is beside the CDU. This change is because this little laptop can't handle three screens and I don't have that much room. With the bottom of the LG monitor lined up with the bottom of the IBM's built-in monitor, there are about three inches left at the top of the LG. I will fill this with the remaining options from XHSI - clock on the left, annunciators, flap, and gear indicators on the right. The latter two are in the exact correct position compared to the real panel, but the annunciators aren't - but again, I'm not buying more monitors or learning Arduino programming just for that. Below this monitor will be my tablet CDU and my very inaccurate Saitek X52 throttle. I'm considering keeping engine ignition stuff for this cockpit down on the throttle quad since I already have all those fancy buttons built in. Flaps and speed brakes will be incorporated with the remaining sliders on the Saitek quad. On the main panel, the most important switches (for casual flyer me) are as follow: Gear, Autobrakes, Warning Shutoff, Yaw Damper. Anything else is depth that I can't afford nor do I have the time to care about. As for the autopilot panel, I have a plan but it might change by the time I get to it, so it'll remain in the dark. As for the overhead (which I'm considering simply integrating into the panel, again for financial reasons), the most important switches to lazy me are Landing Lights, Taxi Lights, APU, VERY basic fuel, Ignition (although I've already discussed the possibilities) and indicator lighting (Nav/Strobe etc). As I don't fly on any sim network (I really can't add another complicated thing to learn to my life), a radio stack is not needed. If it ever is, meh. The reason I have finally decided to do this is because I was just officially accepted into the final stages of the B.Ed. (Bachelor of Elementary Education) program at UVIC, so my life is a little more reliable now, and I know I won't be making any major moves in the next three or four years). If you have any suggestions from your first build or good sources for good switches (I'm trying to find good landing light switches that aren't $20 apiece), shoot them over here I don't know where this project will take me. It's all a big adventure, hence why I'm not pouring money into new equipment. The laptop is a laptop that my dad was going to throw away (for obvious reasons), the monitor a rather beat-up old thing from my dad's dental practice. All the joysticks to be dismantled were either free from Craigslist or under $5 from thrift stores. I will keep updating this as progress happens (or fails to do so).

Is there any news on this recently? Your website appears to be down. Your work is phenomenal and completely changed X-Plane into something completely different.

I vote we rename this topic "what livery of the IXEG 737 did you fly today."

Looks lovely and sunny! Great work - can I recommend a minor colour correction on the orthos? Cheers

The usual cause of this is as follows. You create a polygon, split a side, and the vertices snap without your noticing and end up on top of each other. To solve this, you'll need to narrow down which polygon it is. This you can do as hughesj2 said by relying on the built-in diagnostic tool to find the offending polygon. Go through each node, clicking on them (not highlighting) and dragging it around a bit. At some point you'll probably find that when you drag a certain point, another one appears in the original place and doesn't move. Delete the point you moved, and your problems are solved. If you used the function in the old WED that allows you to generate polygons (which was removed... god knows why, now it takes bloody forever to generate polygons manually), if you were importing a TIFF file sometimes they had errors in their corner data that put points down in the same place twice. Good luck!

Hey everyone - just wanted to remind you that if you have and concerns, questions, or requests for Molokai please let us know! I'm in Spain right now but I will respond within 24 hours. For once both Hawaii Photoreal developers are in the same country (although we won't see each other). Let us know what you think... Please!

This is how I feel - while the vivid colours may not accurately represent the real-life Islands they add to X-Plane what it lacks in the true mind boggling beauty of the chain.

If you already have the plus for FSX/P3D, you're already in for the XP10 one Thanks for the kind words and thank you for paying it forward to the community.

Release Notice: Molokai to be released on Tuesday, April 12th, 2016, may delay from approval. This is it. The basic version of Molokai will be released on Tuesday. I will be calling this V0.9 as it has known issues that will take a long time to correct. There is a strip of land that the orthophoto polygons won't drape over along the DSF boundary (about one metre) that will require a complete overhaul of the DSF tiles. I intend to fix this for the plus release and the future basic version, but it will take many more hours of fiddling around. It's not a fatal or even destructive bug. Something to remember is that this island's airports will not look like Lanai's airport. This is because airports of that quality will be included in the plus versions of all other islands. Lanai is your free taste of the quality of plus stuff. That being said, Lanai will be updated in the coming months to incorporate UHD Mesh, and yes, it will still have the plus airport for free. However, like all other islands, will not include roads or seasonal textures. Kahoolawe will be updated as the only basic island to give you a sense of what Seasonal Textures will look like. I've included the plus vs basic differences tables. I will be out of country after release for two weeks and away from my development station (ie my desk in Victoria) for another three to four weeks after that. While this is not ideal, it'll give lots of time for people to get a taste for what Molokai is like and what bigger islands will be like in Hawaii Photoreal. I'm off to Spain for two weeks, then on a backpacking trip on a stretch of the Pacific Northwest/Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail in May. I am not working full time this summer (yet), instead I am continuing as a part time tour guide at the BC Aviation Museum and a lab assistant at the Royal British Columbia Museum. I'm considering poking my head into the world of payware as an experiment this summer. Anyways, that's all for now. Be ready to download this week. And please provide feedback and rate the file page when it's out **Basic airports use fully default ground textures/pavement but include airport buildings and objects that did not need a high amount of location correction. Following table subject to change. Feature Basic Plus Full 1M Orthophoto Coverage Yes Yes Full UHD Custom Mesh Yes Yes 3D Airports by George Keogh Yes Yes HD Airport Textures No Yes 0.3M Orthophotos around Airports No Yes Roads No Yes Seasonal Textures (Wet, Transition, Dry) No Yes