flightgear/utils/fgpanel

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This is fgpanel - basically the stripped down 2D-Panel code from

FlightGear. It is designed as a standalone lightweight panel 

rendering engine to draw 2d panels on a lowcost computer/graphic card

without 3d acceleration at reasonablel framerates.



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This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or

modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as

published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the

License, or (at your option) any later version.



This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but

WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU

General Public License for more details.



You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software

Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301, USA.



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Usage

start fgpanel with

fgpanel --fg-root=/path/to/fg/data --panel=Aircraft/MyAircraft/Panels/MyPanel.xml

with the command args set to

--fg-root shall point to the directory where your FGDATA lives

  NOTE: you don't need a full copy of FGDATA, just the panel definition files for

  your aircraft, e.g.

  - Aircraft/MyAircraft/Panels/*

  - Aircraft/Instruments/* (if referenced)



-panel shall point to a panel-configuration file, relative to FGDATA



start flightgear with

fgfs --generic=socket,out,10,239.24.10.64,5432,udp,../Aircraft/MyAircraft/Panels/SampleProtocol



=====================================================================

Sample:



Create the sample files within your aicraft directory, preferrable under Panels

MyPanel.xml

sample-2d-panel.xml

SampleProtocol.xml



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Sample panel configuration file (MyPanel.xml)

<PropertyList>



  <!-- true: run full-screen, false; run in window -->

  <game-mode type="bool">false</game-mode>



  <!-- include the panel definitions (2d-panel syntax)-->

  <panel include="sample-2d-panel.xml"/>



  <!-- compose your property-tree here -->

  <sim>

    <panel>

      <flip-x type="bool">false</flip-x>

    </panel>

    <instrument-options>

      <omit-knobs type="bool">true</omit-knobs>

    </instrument-options>

  </sim>



  <!-- network communication settings -->

  <communication>

    <listen>

      <!-- interface to bind to, 

           leave empty for all interfaces -->

      <host>239.24.10.64</host> <!-- multicast address! -->

      <port>5432</port> <!-- tcp port to listen to -->

      <style>udp</style> <!-- udp or tcp (forget about tcp!) -->

    </listen>



    <!-- the generic protocol definition 

         same as used for fgfs --generic=foobar option

    -->

    <protocol include="SampleProtocol.xml"/>

  </communication>

</PropertyList>



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Sampe 2d-panel configuration file sample-2d-panel.xml

To be included from the panel configuration file



<?xml version="1.0"?>

<PropertyList>

    <name>Sample Instrument Panel</name>

    <w>375</w> <!-- screen width: 375mm -->

    <h>305</h> <!-- screen height: 305mm -->

    <instruments>

        <!-- use FlightGear's c172 attitude indicator -->

        <instrument include="../../Instruments/ati-c172s.xml">

            <name>Attitude Gyro</name>

            <x alias="../../../params/col-2"/>

            <y alias="../../../params/row-1"/>

            <w>80</w>

            <h>80</h>

        </instrument>

    </instruments>

</PropertyList>



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Sample protocol configuration file to drive the AI (SampleProtocol.xml)

<?xml version="1.0"?>



<PropertyList>

 <generic>



  <output>

   <line_separator>newline</line_separator>

   <var_separator>,</var_separator>



   <chunk>

    <type>float</type>

    <format>%.2f</format>

    <node>/position/altitude-agl-ft</node>

   </chunk>



   <chunk>

    <type>float</type>

    <format>%.2f</format>

    <node>/instrumentation/attitude-indicator/indicated-roll-deg</node>

   </chunk>



   <chunk>

    <type>float</type>

    <format>%.2f</format>

    <node>/instrumentation/attitude-indicator/indicated-pitch-deg</node>

   </chunk>



   <chunk>

    <type>float</type>

    <format>%.2f</format>

    <node>/instrumentation/attitude-indicator/horizon-offset-deg</node>

   </chunk>



   <chunk>

    <type>float</type>

    <format>%.4e</format>

    <node>/instrumentation/attitude-indicator/spin</node>

   </chunk>

  </output>

 </generic>

</PropertyList>



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