My suggestion for new system mouse pointer (solve click precision with TrackIR)

First of all, sorry for my bad english. This is not new suggestion, i make this in 2013, but today DCS have the same problem. One of the big problems we use those peripherals such as TrackIR, FreeTrack, FaceTrackNoIR and others, is that when you press buttons, it becomes difficult to hit fast and well, since these solutions suffer from low precision and shakes, depending on us to use, and is accentuated more with more toward the edges look.

This is because our mouse is anchored in our sight, and all movement is reflected in the mouse.

An easy solution to this, is to anchor the mouse to the buttons in cabin. This means that the mouse always this fixed at the same point with buttons, no matter where we look.

Thus, although we have low accuracy or shakes, our mouse always pointed where we want.

In this image show the concept, I hope you understand.

...BMS's mouse cursor usually works just as same as DCS when it is not over any clickable switches, It just keeps same XY coordinates on the screen. When it "slowly" reaches close to a switch, it will gravitate and anchor to a switch. Like golf ball goes into a hole when it reaches the edge of it. After the cursor anchor, it stays in the center of the switch even you pan your view. Moving the mouse with an appropriate speed, the cursor leaves the switch and back to normal behavior. If cursor approaches or flies over a switch with an appropriate speed, it will not gravitate nor anchor to it.

For better explain look any Falcon BMS 4.33 video in youtube, you can see this old and nice technique running very very well.

And to keep the mouse pointer around the cabin, where the mouse pointer reaches the edge of the screen, the screen drag the mouse pointer, so you will not miss it for the cab.

I think it's an easy and good solution, and could put as an option, ie you can use the classic or the new system, with a selector in the Options Menu of the simulator.

I hope ED note my solution and to seeing you soon in any upgrade, thank you.

+1 ( as an option of course )

I don't think it's as easy as you think. The issue is that the way mouse pointer works is essentially a laser pointer projected from your camera viewport into infinity and whatever is in the way gets "clicked". Simply recording the X,Y angles off the viewport would not work because if you move your head you'd also move the anchor point (so your pointer would move with your head along the movement axes but not rotation axes, that would be weird). There is no way to anchor that pointer "to the cockpit" - like how do you mean ? It would be totally messed up if for example this was anchored to some arbitrary "cockpit center point" - the farther you moved your head from that center point the more nonsensical would the pointer movement become and if you for example wanted to move your head back and down to reach some buttons behind the throttle in A10C that would not work at all.

I think far easier thing to do would be to make the pointer to "stick" to whatever control it's hovered over that would require some extra movement to "unstick" it (which I think is what BMS is using) but that can lead to issues with selecting controls that are close together when viewed from low angles. Personally I don't really have much of an issue with this as I have my TIR view pretty stable - try increasing your smoothness filter in the TIR software if you have shaky view. I don't think there is an easy solution for this in-sim, although the mouse pointer stickiness to controls seems like it could work as an option.

Falcon BMS have this exact mouse system from many years before, and it is a old sim, with clear restrictions. I dont think that in the new and powerfull DCS sim this cant be posible. If you can make touch button, you can anchor button.

The Falcon BMS unstick mouse is not a problem, believe me, try Falcon BMS and you will see the huge difference when flying with this system. It's not a simple improvement, it's a big change. If you do not convince is that you have not tried, I'm sure of that.

Difficult or not, it is possible, and more easy than create a syntetic AG radar, o dessign aerodynamic flight ;)

Yeah, I remember that system was pretty dope and it even stickies to buttons

Will help with lowering the chances of turning off your generators, Wags ;)

Please don't change anything about clicking please!

Please don't change anything about clicking please!

Change? not, only optional. But before say not, try the mouse system of the Falcon BMS, when you understand the big difference and say (yes yes, implement this please ;))

stable curser

try this ,,make a button on your mouse your trackir pause command,this is how it works,,,put curser on area you want to click eg., Jtac coordinates then pause trackir with said mouse button and click away your coordinance no trouble,, when finshed unclick trackir...Works for me.

try this ,,make a button on your mouse your trackir pause command,this is how it works,,,put curser on area you want to click eg., Jtac coordinates then pause trackir with said mouse button and click away your coordinance no trouble,, when finshed unclick trackir...Works for me.

This is a limited solution fer a big problem, but is not perfect or confortable. The magnetic mouse is more better solution. It's very natural, not need special button (pauses, curves, etc...) configuration, and allow you to use mouse and trackir at the same time. It is similar to Oculus Rift, you can try to explain, but the real only way it is test Falcon BMS mouse for yourself ;)

I don't think it's as easy as you think. The issue is that the way mouse pointer works is essentially a laser pointer projected from your camera viewport into infinity and whatever is in the way gets "clicked". Simply recording the X,Y angles off the viewport would not work because if you move your head you'd also move the anchor point (so your pointer would move with your head along the movement axes but not rotation axes, that would be weird). There is no way to anchor that pointer "to the cockpit" - like how do you mean ? It would be totally messed up if for example this was anchored to some arbitrary "cockpit center point" - the farther you moved your head from that center point the more nonsensical would the pointer movement become and if you for example wanted to move your head back and down to reach some buttons behind the throttle in A10C that would not work at all.

I think far easier thing to do would be to make the pointer to "stick" to whatever control it's hovered over that would require some extra movement to "unstick" it (which I think is what BMS is using) but that can lead to issues with selecting controls that are close together when viewed from low angles. Personally I don't really have much of an issue with this as I have my TIR view pretty stable - try increasing your smoothness filter in the TIR software if you have shaky view. I don't think there is an easy solution for this in-sim, although the mouse pointer stickiness to controls seems like it could work as an option.

Ever used VR in DCS? The mouse pointer is stationed at the same depth level as the control it is on - so the pointer nowadays is in fact in the correct 3D space in the cockpit, and thus making the OP:s option very much viable. If it weren't it would be impossible to accurately use the mouse in VR.

Please don't change anything about clicking please!

And people don't seem to realise: This would be an OPTION! You can always just not change the control type, and you would never know it's there. For the rest of us who absolutely want this, pleas ED, PLEASE! Cockpit interaction with the current system is frustrating as heck. Allow us to have such a convenient feature!

Regards,

MikeMikeJuliet

This! Pls ED

'Ground-stabilised' mouse pointer.

+1

One potential problem - imagine you've just clicked a switch behind you and you then look forward, presumably the pointer remains behind you - how do you drag the pointer back into view? Will the edge of the screen drag the pointer with it?

This would also be nice for VR as well

really +1 and good idea to "drag" the mousepointer when reaching the borders of the screen!

Actually, what FalconBMS has is a bit different to what OP suggests. BMS's mouse cursor usually works just as same as DCS when it is not over any clickable switches, It just keeps same XY coordinates on the screen. When it "slowly" reaches close to a switch, it will gravitate and anchor to a switch. Like golf ball goes into a hole when it reaches the edge of it. After the cursor anchor, it stays in the center of the switch even you pan your view. Moving the mouse with an appropriate speed, the cursor leaves the switch and back to normal behavior. If cursor approaches or flies over a switch with an appropriate speed, it will not gravitate nor anchor to it.

'Ground-stabilised' mouse pointer.

 

+1

 

One potential problem - imagine you've just clicked a switch behind you and you then look forward, presumably the pointer remains behind you - how do you drag the pointer back into view? Will the edge of the screen drag the pointer with it?

If Mouse move has been detected and the last cursor heading is not shown on the screen, the sim can just pop up the cursor from the center or the edge of the screen. Or somewhere appropriate. Anything can be programmable...

Actually, what FalconBMS has is a bit different to what OP suggests. BMS's mouse cursor usually works just as same as DCS when it is not over any clickable switches, It just keeps same XY coordinates on the screen. When it "slowly" reaches close to a switch, it will gravitate and anchor to a switch. Like golf ball goes into a hole when it reaches the edge of it. After the cursor anchor, it stays in the center of the switch even you pan your view. Moving the mouse with an appropriate speed, the cursor leaves the switch and back to normal behavior. If cursor approaches or flies over a switch with an appropriate speed, it will not gravitate nor anchor to it.

Yes, this is my suggestion. I may not have expressed myself well, since my English is not good. But this method referred to me :thumbup:

I put your best description in the main post :smilewink:

Did you know btw, that this feature already works in DCS, but only in menus. Try it in VR. Those who have, know that the game menus (main menu included) is played within an aircraft hangar, effectively in-engine (and not in some menu-dimension). The mouse pointer in ALL menus stays still when not moving the mouse regardless of where you look or how view is used. Same thing in-game. If you pause the game with the escape-key, the menu that pops up holds the mouse naturally in place. And as you know, you can still move your head and view around the cockpt.

Only when no menu is active is the cursor following the viewport! And to revise, the mouse cursor is set to the correct depth in the cockpit, meaning the only thing remaining is to not apply the cursor travel with viewport.

Eagle Dynamics: this must be an oversight surely! I know this feature has been a part of DCS cockpit interaction for years, but as I see it, the feature is already there, it just doesn't affect the cockpit. Many of us, VR- and TIR-users would appreciate the requested feature immensly.

Regards

MikeMikeJuliet

+1 yes this would be good :-)

Agreed, this would be great to see in DCS

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

+1 this would be a very useful option, and the mouse cursor floating around cockpit buttons ( trying to click them ) in all the DCS videos out there show that every player has to deal with it :)

+1

Please don't change anything about clicking please!

Why? Are you using TrackIR? If not, then what difference does it make to you? This is just a pointless statement for no reason.

I do use TrackIR and know what he's talking about, and yeah, it is extremely frustrating that the cursor constantly bobs around while you're trying to click on something. Depending on circumstances, it makes clicking buttons very difficult. I have enough peripherals I don't usually have to fish around a cockpit for crucial controls, but it can make startup frustrating when your TrackIR is being ditzy and it takes you five tries to actually click the button.

My suggestion is something like a deadzone. Say you put the cursor over the button and unless your head moves +/- say 3' the cursor remains anchored from the head tracker. If you move your head very much, the cursor follows, then settles again once you stop moving your head so much.

Been looking tonight to see if this was possible anywhere. Why is this not a thing? Been miss clicking left right and center in VR, almost impossible to scroll the altimeter in the F-18 in VR while in flight because you have to keep your head millimeter accurate to hit the tiny hotspot for it.

Please don't change anything about clicking please!

+1

Cursor and clicking work fine.

+1

 

Cursor and clicking work fine.

Possibly you don't use VR? And if you do, and it works... that's great for you buddy. But your experience != the world. A user configurable option will effect your use in no way, where as it will benefit VR users immensely.

+1.