#2 - 737 X Plane Homecockpit Episode Two - Projection

Why did I build a projection in my 1:1 full size X-Plane homecockpit?
I would like to share some tips how I built the screen and approached the warping.
!! Fly Elise recommends about 15 degree of overlap to achieve best results for blending. I have to redo my warping when time allows and try that !!
If you want to learn more check out www.citysim.de and book your flight to have a look behind the scene...or screen. Flugsimulator in München.
I have a Zibo / X-plane 11.42 based simulator. Hardware is CPflight (with midwest737simulation.com PlugIn) Shell FDS, TQ Cockpitforyou, OEM seats, CB´s and a few other things.
Projection: FlyElise Immersive Calibration/Display Pro (Ultimate).
3 x Optoma 1080 Darbee. NVidia 1080. 3 x 1920 x 1080. Homemade screen and mounts. 2 stop darker, light-grey screen paint. FOV aprox. 75 degree each / minus blending aprox 180 degree total.
X-Plane (vanilla) with Ortho 4 XP and several additional airport sceneries.

[@gtwrmw1978]

I wish every technical video on KZbin could be this concise. So many of my questions were answered in just 7 short minutes. Thank you.

[@citysim7375]

Thanks! Don‘t miss the fly elise videos by back bedroom pilot ... i found him recently and found the videos very good.

[@Flight737]

The blending of the projectors was very interesting. Good video, very insightful

[@adelaideboeing737project4]

Great video. Will be building our screen soon as well.

[@citysim7375]

Have fun! I forgot to mention the vertical adjustment. I just parked face 2 face with a parked 737 and aligned projectors accordingly.

[@doltBmB]

the bigger the screen, the better the effect, problem being of course space, but also the brightness required of the projectors, it gets impractical if you need cinema brightness even in a basement or garage. old hollywood has a solution, retro reflective front projection, as long as your viewpoint is close to the projection point, the screen can be as large as you want and still look the same. I don't know how practical this would actually be, but I'm surprised nobody has tried it. for regular projection a darker screen colour can increase image quality by a lot, it only slightly darkens the image but it catches much less stray light, so the overall effect is that of a brighter and less washed out image.

[@rustykaliman9276]

Thank you Stephan, very informative.

[@dangeloodin5501]

InstaBlaster.

[@cherfieldm]

So amazing, creation.

[@citysim7375]

Thank you!

[@shamsherbhandari3494]

wow .. impresive

[@edendunes]

Great I used Fiber Optic HDMI the best.

[@andreels]

Nice video and good work Stephan, was this done before or after our visit ?

[@citysim7375]

Thank you Andre! The work was done before, the video last week. Hope you are well? Your picture is in my hall of fame ;-)

[@andreels]

@@citysim7375 very cool :)

[@flightsimcentre9244]

@@andreels simply thank you🙏

[@fabienmarion8925]

Hello, Very good job. I will also be building a 180 ° screen. What do you recommend as projectors? In terms of painting MDF, is it a special paint? Thank you

[@citysim7375]

Hi Fabien, thanks!! I have 3 Optoma 1080 GT Darbee, ultra short throw. I thought i had mentioned it. Until we get to 4 k, affordable and short throw (and more CPU power or more PCs...) 3 x 1920/1080 looks pretty good on X-Plane. Paint can be any light grey, I have the special screen color , 2 ‚stops’ darker than white. Below i have it primed in white.

[@MH-tt5ix]

Where can I purchase the projector mounts?

[@alexandremaximilian1135]

cooool thx so much

[@ErnestoLombeyda]

Hello, excellent video tutorial! Just one question, how is the procalib configuration file loaded...in Xplane and where, thank you very much! I have 3 projectors, I already have the image calibrated with P3D, but with XP11 I don't know how to do it...

[@citysim7375]

Thx Ernesto. please consider this video is a bit dated ;-) Calib Pro exports some 6 files into a procalib folder. 3 of the files contain that data that you put...i mean enter (typing !) manually in the graphic settings for the 3 displays/projectors with their FOV, horizontal- and vertical shift. Done.

[@huaso7376]

Stephan, great, congratulations for what you did and so fast. I made a cockpit too but took me allmost 5 years, is too easy to get lazy and more when you choose to build against buy them because of cost. Two big questions. I got to fit my cockpit in a 2,4 meters wide room keeping the 1 to 1 scale and used three curved 48 inch monitors but I sold them because the color shift (angle view) between was a stone in the shoe and the bezels were not thin enought, they were VA panels. Do you think your setup but with only two projectors would fit in a squared room of 2,4 meters per side? I can get to fit the curved screen but there is a lot of things that only experience like yours can clear. The second; how is the black quality (contrast) for night flights with the Optomas? Right now I am beetwen buy two proyectors or buy the three Tvs this time with IPS panels.

[@citysim7375]

Hi Huaso, thank you very much. Well...many questions. I am ok with the black - the width feeling of the projectors is just great compared to monitors. I / you have to use a different blending set though for night flights vs. daylight vs. twilight, otherwise you have a brighter spot in the blending area. As long as you can get the picture over the shell, a 2,40 room might work somehow. I have reduced from 220 to 180 as you saw, and I guess even one screen to the front (only) might work? Will post a twilight flight sometime. Night needs more tweaking before posting.

[@JesperMilling]

Why not white paint? and why not extra reflective paint made for projection screens?

[@citysim7375]

Hi Jesper, seems best practise to darken slightly the screen, so the reflections are suppressed. You don´t want to have brightness lighting up the dark areas, and loosing contrast by that. Loosing black.

[@josefzammit3059]

Hi, well done great job! How thick is the HDF, 3mm?

[@citysim7375]

Josef Zammit Thanks! I will check, but 3 mm sounds correct. Easy to install and bend, but pretty heavy given the size. Second person to help recommended.

[@citysim7375]

It is 3 mm !

[@acecomer98]

Looks great, we are using 5 x 1080p projectors on an 8ft radius screen. I'm curious as to how you guys ensured that the FOVs were correct for a 1:1 image. Did you have a testing setup or did you simply adjust until it felt right? Thanks

[@citysim7375]

Wait, what´s 8ft in proper measurement...2,43m ok :-) A little fun. Very similar to my size if i remember correctly. I went for only 180 degrees (so the image is better than if you aim at 220 degree or so). And the rest is simply done by the way you spread 3 projectors across 180 degree: you need 3 x 60 PLUS the overlap in the blending. FlyElise IDP (designer pro) will spit out the values, around 70 degree. This means X-Plane eventually creates a 180 degree picture which is perfet for my desired 180 degrees. Really easy - unless I misunderstood your question. The heigt alignment you do with the simple trick to park opposite from an identical aircraft and you want to be eye to eye with the other pilot.

[@acecomer98]

@@citysim7375 Thanks for the quick response. I'll clarify a bit on what I meant. For example, let's say there was a 5 meter pole stationed some 20 meters away. In reality, this pole should appear a certain height on the screen (which can be easily calculated). I was curious how you guys were able to ensure that the image showed the true size as to what reality would suggest. One of the biggest issues I have had with XP is objects not showing up correctly in the vertical axis while they show up fine in the horizontal axis.

[@citysim7375]

@@acecomer98 Good point. Probably important for certification. Not in practical operation. Much more tricky for me is the crab angle which we optimize for the most important seat (ie. pilot flying / customer). NONE of some 30 commercial pilots who flew with us ever complained about the graphics / projection AND size of object / angle of objects, ie. runway dimension in the sim. "better graphics than in most Level D sims". "stunning Details. " How would you go at the correct height? Can only be the angle between bottom and top of the ie 5m pole? So We park away from a pole, lets say an apron light pole and compare real world and sim? Obviously with height being checked in world editor or so...

[@acecomer98]

@@citysim7375 I gotcha. Actually, I set up a model with some known heights and verified the height. All is well on our end for 1:1 object size as our warp and blend software defines FOVs for us. I appreciate your responses!

[@citysim7375]

@@acecomer98 Nice! How did you verify the height in the projection? Where is your sim and what aircraft? Would love to see!

[@Inserico]

Thanks for sharing your methods. If you had the Pro version of X-Plane, would you have used the inbuilt warp features as oppose to 3rd party?

[@citysim7375]

I do have the Pro Version of XP . Warping though is not comparable to FlyElise. Basic warping only . With the exception of some Natvis (or so) users almost EVERY cockpit builder uses FlyElise for warping & blending. Check out Back Bedroom Pilot´s Videos. He shows a perfect blending with 2 projectors.

[@Inserico]

@@citysim7375 that’s good to know. I’m also in the process of building it. XP internal warping simply doesn’t work. And when I use external program to do the warping, the projectors look weird/unwarped when that screen is in focus, when you Alt+Tab out of that screen, it gets warped. Have you experienced that?

[@citysim7375]

@@Inserico no I haven't. What software are you using? You need to watch some videos in order to correctly use FlyElise. And read the manual.

[@Inserico]

@@citysim7375 I'm using SimPitWarp (which is basically FlyElise Display Pro I think). I find that if I don't enable the "Projection parameter" option in XP Pro, the runway markings/image don't align. But if I use that option, it aligns but there's a big bubbly/round mask on the outside of the image. Do you use that option along with FlyElise?

[@citysim7375]

@@Inserico simpit is a different product than IDP. You have to enter the calculated figures of your calibratino SW into XP of course : FOV, horizontal and vertical offsets in graphics settings. Not sure what you mean by "ENABLING PROJECTION PARAMETER". I don´t know that check box. But of course I entered data in graphics settings.

[@arthurchakanyuka496]

genius

[@hwangsunil1761]

Hi great video and useful info there. I have the same problem with XP. 3 projectors and only one monitor set window on XP. What does that simply create 3 monitors on XP mean? Can I create monitors in XP while I get to have just one monitor setup in XP? My XP is not a pro version. Thanks!

[@hwangsunil1761]

I had the same problem and I've just fiex that now. Fly elised support team help me out. I didn't understand what they mean but after following their instruction I got that view on X plane About the instruction. Get out of NVDIA surround mode. Assign each projector with corresponding procalib files. (My case was multi_projector1.procalin and 2, 3) Leave descktop warp disabled, Leave Vulkan is not diabled in Display pro. (open Display PRO preferences and in Extras make sure that Vulkan is not disabled) Set X plane graphic setting with ICP exported xplane view setting value) Then I got the view on X plane. Thanks to the Citysim737.

[@plane_spotter_italy]

I think I will do a curved screen for my a320 home cockpit but the only thing I don't like is that when you do day flight the outside looks like day but in the cockpit its dark

[@citysim7375]

One of pot. more solutions: Put it a light (controllable LED) that creates an ambience similar to the color outside. I saw this in a sim in CZ republic (Pink Skyvan) and found it mega clever. Stunning Sun light effects. AND: I tell you the night is worse: The overlap is generally to bright (when it is ok set / optimized for daylight. Solution: different brightness etc set for night flights. Doable, but work. I didn'tdo it - too lazy/ busy.

[@plane_spotter_italy]

@@citysim7375 ok thanks! I was thinking of also maybe using the tv's because they make much light but they cost to much thx!

[@nikosgeorgakis6759]

Great great simulator,,!! What do you use about intercom?

[@citysim7375]

see latest video. Flightsound GA and extension

[@nikosgeorgakis6759]

@@citysim7375 thank you, Captain!

[@nikosgeorgakis6759]

So I suppose the ONE PC PER PROJECTOR is if you use X-Plane's 11 pro software. If you use elise you can have 2 or 3 projectors per pc Correct Captain?

[@citysim7375]

Not sure I understand what you want to ask :-) I have a pro license but never looked into the warping. LR said it is rather basic and provides basic cylindric warp. Every pit I know uses FlyElise here (very few the australian thing). Yes, I have 3 1080 projectors on the visual PC. One PC per monitor?: Check out Michael Swannick, he runs on PC per 4k monitor.

[@nikosgeorgakis6759]

@@citysim7375 A friend told me that xplane11 allows you to calibrate a screen 180 or more via its software only if you have 1 projector on 1 pc. So if you want 3 projectors you need 3 pc. But from what I see with this software you can calibrate 3 projectors on 1 pc.

[@citysim7375]

@@nikosgeorgakis6759 Well, you need to ask this specific question LR. ----the graphic settings generally allow to set 3 monitors with lateral rotation (you have XP? play with it with 2 monitors yourself!!) - Again, I would ask: is the warping (of the picture on the cylinder) and the blending (to hide the overlap of the projectors) good enough in XP Pro? Again, some Aussies use NAtvis or so. Everybody (!!) here uses Flyelise ;-)

[@nikosgeorgakis6759]

@@citysim7375 thank you for your interest and kindness Stephan! I really appreciate it! You helped me a lot!

[@my737simulator]

Great video. I can not get xplane 11 (non pro) to have more than 1 monitor. (Projector) When I open immersive display pro after the Calibration export and go to.simulators for xplane it has 3 projectors on the right and a popup on the left. The popup only allows you to pick 1 projector in immersive display pro. Do you need a xplane pro license to get ot to work? My p3d viewgroups are fine and fu Warping works perfectly. But xplane is giving me problems.

[@citysim7375]

Hy mate. YOu dont need XP Pro. In XP you simply create 3 monitors. Calibration Pro creates the values you enter in the graphics setting page of XP manually /fov, vert. and horiz. shift). In IDP you pick up the multicalib files from ICP. That should do it. And please write to FlyElise that their manual sucks, they need a way easier step by step guide. So many people struggling. And that they should do a Mac M1 version :-)

[@hwangsunil1761]

Hi great video and useful info there. I have the same problem with XP. 3 projectors and only one monitor set window on XP. What does that simply create 3 monitors on XP mean? Can I create monitors in XP while I get to have just one monitor setup in XP? My XP is not a pro version. Thanks!

[@citysim7375]

@@hwangsunil1761 go to graphics settings page. add / select monitors ...1, 2, 3. Did you do that?

[@hwangsunil1761]

@@citysim7375 Thanks for the quick response. In my x plane’s graphic setting I only see one monitor setting. I can not add 2, 3 monitors. It probably is because my X plane is not the pro version. I’ve been getting help from Fly Elise and didn’t get successful result yet. They instructed me to turn off NVDIA surround mode then to assign each projector with corresponding procalib files and leave the desktop warping disabled, which I don’t understand. How can I get calibrated view without desktop warping. Anyway I’m struggling with this at the moment. I hope I get this done soon.

[@hwangsunil1761]

I had the same problem and I've just fiex that now. Fly elised support team help me out. I didn't understand what they mean but after following their instruction I got that view on X plane About the instruction. Get out of NVDIA surround mode. Assign each projector with corresponding procalib files. (My case was multi_projector1.procalin and 2, 3) Leave descktop warp disabled, Leave Vulkan is not diabled in Display pro. (open Display PRO preferences and in Extras make sure that Vulkan is not disabled) Set X plane graphic setting with ICP exported xplane view setting value) Then I got the view on X plane.

[@thomaspalazzo2482]

I am in the same shoes. I built a 180 degree screen with my students. We have had no luck with Fly Elise helping us. We are using XP-11. Is there anyone that is available for a phone call or zoom meeting to help walk us through the process?

[@citysim7375]

What is the issue? You purchased a license, wrote them and they did not answer? Maybe ask in our FB group „xplane homecockpit english and german“ as well. And read the other answers/posts…ie go to graphic settings…never ever touch nvidia surround…follow the calibration pro manual

[@Rudyworld]

Looks like your left blend zone has a spot.

[@citysim7375]

Yep, not entirely happy with blending, will redo sometime. Looks worse on cameras though than in real.

[@citysim7375]

ps - the blending of the ground, runway and apron is perfect. When you decrease brightness of sky, you impact the ground at the same time which becomes too dark then...Afaik there are no look up tables or so in IDP to handle different brightness individually...

[@briancrosby3767]

We are having a hard time getting it to work. We have the blending done and the file saved. How do we get it to work in x-plane? We exported files but are stuck. Please help. Thanks.

[@citysim7375]

you enter the fov, lateral offset, vertical offset manually in the XP monitor settings. You loaded calib files into IDP? Are you in the FB group X-Plane Homecockpit? Various projections guys are in the group. Send me a mail if nothing works.

[@briancrosby3767]

@@citysim7375 thank you. We will give it a try and I'll let you know what happens.

[@briancrosby3767]

So it was a no go. Cant seem to get warping to come up. Entering all info as you stated. Is there something that we need to do with display pro? Getting image on projectors but they arent warped

[@citysim7375]

@@briancrosby3767 I had this as well once. Don´t remember what it was. You are on the latest version?

[@briancrosby3767]

@@citysim7375 yes, we just downloaded latest version