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A10C Cockpit model size


SkEpTic

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TL;DR - Is the A10C's cockpit model the correct scale because when imported into Fusion360 (CAD) the cockpit model seems to be 1.041x the correct size.

 

I am trying to create a mixed reality cockpit using VR (hopefully the Pimax8k if it lives up to the hype), a physical mock up of the A10C cockpit and hand tracking. This would allow you to feel like you are touching what you are seeing through the VR headset. The switches would really work and the hand tracking would only be used to give feedback on your hands position, as you cant see them in VR without it.

 

So to make the physical mock up of the cockpit I was initially going to use MIL-Specs and accurate dimensions from the actual A10C, however the model ingame isn't entirely accurate to real life. I changed my approach and using a blender addon was able to extract the .EDM file (Eagle dynamics model - I'm guessing) into blender. This gave me the actual cockpit model so I could model my physical cockpit to exactly how it is ingame - meaning everything would feel in the right place. I then put the model into Fusion360 as a mesh (.STL) for measuring and modelling.

 

This is where I found an issue. I know that the width of the ADI instrument panel (ARU 2B/A) is 5 inches exactly due to milspecs. However when I measured the model in Fusion360 the width came out as ~5.2 inches. After measuring the MFCD as well I found the whole cockpit seems to be off by a scale of 1.041x. If I export the .STL from blender at a scale of 0.96 then the measurements in Fusion360 match the real life measurements.

 

So after all that, my question. Is the cockpit ingame off by the same scale factor or is it imported into the engine at a different scale and only modeled at the wrong size. If I were to create my physical mock up using the raw model dimensions the I would end up with a bigger cockpit which wouldn't feel right but if I scaled it down then the in game cockpit and physical cockpit wouldn't match up and so my hands would be flailing for a switch that would really be somewhere else.

 

Possible solutions are - Measure in VR. Right now I don't have a VR headset as i'm waiting for Pimax reviews but it should be possible to measure the width of the ADI panel in VR to see wether its 5 inches (correct) or ~5.2 inches (incorrect). If it is incorrect, could scaling the hand tracking fix it if I made the physical mock up the real (correct) size, so that the hand tracking moves further than IRL. These are all things I want to find out before I go any further with modelling and design. Also, why would the devs model the cockpit so its off by such a weird scale.

 

Thanks for reading, any insight into whats happening and how it works in game would be very helpful!

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(Sorry if this eventually shows up twice; I had a message typed up but the forums logged me out. )

 

It appears you and I are on the same journey for the same reasons. Would you mind sharing how you got the model exported? Might I be so bold to ask for a raw copy of the results? Potential scaling issues aside for a moment, if you are building a physical cockpit for VR use, wouldn't you want it to match the scale of the in game cockpit regardless of mil spec. It needs to match what your eyes see in game. right?

 

Now in regards to your scaling issue. I use aerospace grade modeling software on a daily basis and what you may be seeing is a result of some global scaling factors that are often applied to .STL files. What format did your export from EDM come in or what filetype options were there? I may be able to help investigate more. We have a Stratasys Fortus 400mc and the Insight software allows for a global scaling factor to accommodate for shrinkage of the thermoplastic after 3D printing. 4.1% sounds about right for certain materials. I think ours was a little north of 3%. I suggest looking for a global scaling factor somewhere that might be automatically applied to you .STL. STL's are garbage to model from anyway. The other consideration is the system of measurement be it metric or sae. You'd be able to tell that right away usually. But again, depending on your import/export process, its possible your could induce some error. The STL creation is literally dependent on your graphical fidelity settings of your modeling software and not any sort of math/formula based model. It's possible to induce error there too. This can get carried over to cylinder-to-cylinder measurements for scale. It boils down to your tessellation accuracy. I doubt this is occurring but it's worthy of mention.

 

PM me? I'd love to see what you are seeing. I'd love to lend a hand.

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I'm pretty sure I read that ED made some scaling changes to the HUD to make it more playable on a 2D monitor (yech...I know! :) ) So I'm thinking a scale change for the cockpit wouldn't be out of realm of impossible.

 

 

 

I don't know anything about Fusion/modeling etc. so I'm afraid I'm no help to you guys. I just use Vectric 2D software for making button boxes.

hsb

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As an update, I was able so use my search-fu and find the same tools you did. I was able to import the .EDM into Blender and then export the whole thing in a number of formats including .STL. I've noticed that each "object" gets its own line item in the Blender tree view. I'm currently looking for a way to recursively save each object as its own .STL file which would be handy later on.

 

I'm using dassault CATIA v5 (same thing fighters and pretty much everyone in aerospace uses). I haven't had much need to reverse engineer from an STL but I can see how this might come in handy in my day to day. I'm currently exploring various tools to create actual geometry (points, lines, planes, curves, surfaces, etc.) from the .STL This will give us very accurate means of measurement. If I'm able to recursively save as I mentioned above, I should in theory be able to create and assembly of sorts which would allow us to isolate dimensions for the components we actually would want. Another interesting thing I observed was that the .EDM had an ordinate system set at the eyepoint. This got carried over to the .STL as well so every component should sit correctly in aircraft geometry.

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As an update, I was able so use my search-fu and find the same tools you did. I was able to import the .EDM into Blender and then export the whole thing in a number of formats including .STL. I've noticed that each "object" gets its own line item in the Blender tree view. I'm currently looking for a way to recursively save each object as its own .STL file which would be handy later on.

 

I'm using dassault CATIA v5 (same thing fighters and pretty much everyone in aerospace uses). I haven't had much need to reverse engineer from an STL but I can see how this might come in handy in my day to day. I'm currently exploring various tools to create actual geometry (points, lines, planes, curves, surfaces, etc.) from the .STL This will give us very accurate means of measurement. If I'm able to recursively save as I mentioned above, I should in theory be able to create and assembly of sorts which would allow us to isolate dimensions for the components we actually would want. Another interesting thing I observed was that the .EDM had an ordinate system set at the eyepoint. This got carried over to the .STL as well so every component should sit correctly in aircraft geometry.

 

Converting an EDM from the EDM Format is against the EULA.

 

Discussion Closed.

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