From: curt Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 21:06:45 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Updates for version 0.6.0 X-Git-Url: https://git.mxchange.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=af35b3dd9c58acf3134eed67a3c346a238b9b0d4;p=flightgear.git Updates for version 0.6.0 --- diff --git a/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/arizona.gif b/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/arizona.gif index 1fb5b1559..3ba1865f4 100644 Binary files a/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/arizona.gif and b/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/arizona.gif differ diff --git a/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/getstart.html b/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/getstart.html index ac7f435cc..33028374d 100644 --- a/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/getstart.html +++ b/Docs/InstallGuide/HTML/getstart.html @@ -1,2971 +1,3344 @@ - - -FlightGear Flight Simulator - Installation and Getting Started -

FlightGear Flight Simulator - Installation and Getting Started

- - -

- -

Michael Basler (pmb@knUUt.de)
- Bernhard Buckel - (buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de)
- -

-

-

March 7, 1999

- -

- -

Contents

1  Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear !
chapter.1 -    1.1  Yet another Flight Simulator?
section.1.1 -    1.2  A short history of FlightGear
section.1.2 -    1.3  System requirements
section.1.3 -    1.4  Whom this guide is addressed to and how it is organized
section.1.4 -2  Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL graphics drivers
chapter.2 -    2.1  3DFX under Linux
section.2.1 -    2.2  Rendition Chipset under Windows 98/NT
section.2.2 -    2.3  RIVA TNT Chipset under Windows 98/NT
section.2.3 -    2.4  3DFX chip based boards under Windows 98/NT
section.2.4 -    2.5  OpenGL software rendering under Windows 98/NT
section.2.5 -3  Building the plane: Compiling the program
chapter.3 -    3.1  Compiling under Linux
section.3.1 -    3.2  Compiling under Windows 98/NT
section.3.2 -4  Preflight: Installing FlightGear
chapter.4 -    4.1  Installing the Binaries
section.4.1 -    4.2  Installing Support files
section.4.2 -5  Takeoff: How to start the program
chapter.5 -    5.1  Starting under Linux
section.5.1 -    5.2  Starting under Windows 98/NT
section.5.2 -    5.3  Command line parameters
section.5.3 -        5.3.1  General Options
subsection.5.3.1 -        5.3.2  Features
subsection.5.3.2 -        5.3.3  Initial Position and Orientation
subsection.5.3.3 -        5.3.4  Rendering Options
subsection.5.3.4 -6  Flight: Keystrokes, the HUD and all that
chapter.6 -    6.1  Keyboard commands
section.6.1 -    6.2  The head up display
section.6.2 -7  Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane
chapter.7 -    7.1  Those, who did the work
section.7.1 -    7.2  What remains to be done
section.7.2 -8  Missed approach: If anything refuses to work
chapter.8 -    8.1  General problems
section.8.1 -    8.2  Potential problems under Linux
section.8.2 -    8.3  Potential problems under Windows95/NT
section.8.3 - -

-

-Chapter 1
Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear ! -

- -

-

-1.1  Yet another Flight Simulator?

-Did you ever want to fly a plane yourself, but lacked the money or -skills to do so? Do you belong to those real pilots, who want to -improve their skills without having to take off? Do you want to -try some dangerous maneuvers without risking your life? Or do you -just want to have fun with a more serious game not killing any -people? If any of these questions applies, PC flight simulators -are just for you. - -

-If you are reading this you might have got already some experience -either using Microsoft -'s © FS98 -, -Looking Glass -' © Flight Unlimited II - or any -other of the commercially available PC flight simulators. As the price -tag of those is usually within the 50$ range buying one of it should -not be a serious problem given the fact, that running any serious PC -flight simulator requires a hardware within the 1500$ range, despite -dropping prices, at least. - -

-Why then that effort of spending hundreds or thousands of hours of -programming to build a free simulator? Obviously there must be -good reason to do so: - -

- -

-

-The above-mentioned points make FlightGear different from other -competitors in several respect. FlightGear aims to be a -civilian, - -multi-platform, - -open, - user-supported, - user-extensible - simulator: - -

- -

-

-

-1.2  A short history - of FlightGear

- -

-This project goes back to a discussion of a group of net-citizens -in 1996. This resulted in a proposal written by David -Murr - who, unfortunately, dropped out from the -project (as well as the net) later. His proposal - is still -available from the FlightGear web site and can be found under - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/proposal-3.0. - -

-Although the names of the people and several of the details -naturally changed in time, the spirit of that proposal was clearly -retained up to the present status of the project. - -

-Actual coding started in summer 1996 and by the end of that year essential graphics -routines were completed. At that time, programming was mainly done and coordinated by -Eric Korpela - from Berkeley University -(korpela@ssl.Berkeley.EDU). Early code was running under Linux - as well as -under DOS -, OS/2 -, Windows 95/NT -, and Sun-OS -. This was -quite an ambitious project, as it involved, among others, writing all the graphics -routines - in a system-independent way just from scratch. - -

-Development slowed down and finally stopped at the beginning of 1997 when Eric had to -complete his thesis. At this point, the project seemed to be dead and traffic on the -mailing list went down to nearly nothing. - -

-It was Curt Olson - from the University of Minnesota -(curt@flightgear.org) who re-started the project in the middle of 1997. His idea -was as simple as successful: Why invent the wheel a second time? There have been several -free flight simulators - available running on -workstation -s under several flavors of UNIX -. One of these, -LaRCsim -, which was developed by Bruce Jackson - from NASA -(jackson@larc.nasa.gov) seemed to be well-adapted for the present approach. Curt -took this one apart and re-wrote several of the routines in a way making them build-able -as well as run-able on the intended target platforms. The key idea in doing so was -selecting a system-independent graphics platform, i. e. OpenGL -, for the basic -graphics routines -. -


-

- -



Fig. 1: The Navion - flight model is one of the -features FlightGear inherited from LaRCsim -. Until now it -is the only one plane being realized in FlightGear . -


-

-In addition, a clever decision on the selection of the basic -scenery - data was already made in this very first version. -FlightGear Scenery is created on the basis of satellite data -published by the U. S. Geological Survey -. These terrain -data are available for the whole world over the Internet for free -from - -

- http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html - -

- for the US resp. - -

- http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/gtopo30/gtopo30.html - -

- for other countries. Those freely accessible scenery data in - conjunction with scenery building tools provided with - FlightGear are an important prerequisite enabling anyone to - create his or her own scenery, at least in principle. - -

-This new FlightGear code - still largely being based on original LaRCsim - code - -was released in July 1997. From that moment the project gained momentum again. Here are -some milestones from the further history of development: - -

- -

This is by no way a complete history and a lot of people making even important -contributions were left out here. Besides the named achievements which are more on the -surface, there was a lot of work done concerning the internal structure, by Steve -Baker - (sjbaker@hti.com) -, Norman -Vine - (nhv@laserplot.com), Gary R. Van Sickle - (tiberius@braemarinc.com), and others. A more complete list of -contributors to the project can be found in Landing: Some further thoughts before -leaving the plane, chapter 7 as well as in the file Thanks provided -with the code. Moreover, the FlightGear Website - contains a detailed history of -all of the development under - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/News/. - -

-

-1.3  System requirements

- -Compared to other recent flight simulators the system requirements -for FlightGear are rather decent. A P100 is already sufficient, -given you have a proper 3D graphics card, but of course for -getting good performance we recommend a P200 or better, if you run -it on a PC. On the other hand, any not too ancient UNIX - -workstation - will run FlightGear as well. - -

-While in principle you can run FlightGear on 3D boards without OpenGL support or even on -systems without 3D graphics hardware, missing hardware OpenGL support can force even the -fastest PII to its knees (frame rate -s typically below 1 fps even on fast -machines). Any cheap 3D graphics card will do as long as it features hardware -OpenGL - support. For Windows 98/NT - drivers, you may contact the home page -of the manufacturer. Moreover, you should have in mind that most OpenGL -drivers - are still marked as beta and moreover, often these drivers -are provided by the makers of the graphics chip instead of the makers of the board. More -detail on OpenGL drivers can be found under - -

-http://www.x-plane.com/v4ibm.html - -

- as well as under - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/Hardware. - -

-Moreover, you need around 16MB of free disk space for installing the -executable including most of the scenery. In case you want to compile -the program yourself you need around 50MB for the source code and for -temporary files created during compilation, independent of the -operating system. - -

-If you want to hear the sound effects - any decent sound card - should serve. -At present, support for using a joystick - or yoke - is just in its early -stages, but is expected to work on most systems. At present, Pedals are supported under -UNIX/Linux only. - -

-With respect to operating systems, FlightGear is being primarily developed under -Linux -, a free UNIX clone developed cooperatively over the net in much the same -way as the FlightGear project itself. Moreover, FlightGear runs under Windows -95 -, Windows 98 - and Windows NT - and given you have a proper -compiler - installed it can be build under all of these platform as well. The -primary compiler for all platforms is GNU C++ - (i. e. the Cygnus - compiler -under Win32), however there is some support for MSVC -5 as well. Moreover, -FlightGear runs and can be build on several UNIX -/X11 platforms with GNU C++ -installed. - -

-

-1.4  Whom this guide is addressed to and how it is organized

- -

-At first: There is not much of the material in this Guide being originally invented by -ourself. You could even say with Montaigne that we ''merely gathered here a big bunch of -other men's flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the strip to hold them -together''. Most (but fortunately not all) of the information can as well be grabbed from -the FlightGear home page - being situated at - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/ - -

- and its various sub pages. However, there still seem to -be a small group of people preferring neatly printed manuals over -loosely scattered Readmes and those may acknowledge our effort. - -

-This Installation and Getting Started is intended as being a first step towards -a more complete FlightGear documentation - (with the other parts, supposedly, to -be written by others). Its main addressee is the end-user who is not interested in the -internal workings of OpenGL - or in building his or her own scenery, for instance. -It is our hope, that sometime there will be an accompanying FlightGear -Programmer's Guide -, which could be based on some of the documentation under - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/Docs, - -

- a FlightGear Scenery Design Guide -, and a -FlightGear Flight School -, at least. - -

-This Installation and Getting Started is organized as -follows: - -

-The first chapter 2, Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL graphics -drivers, describes how to prepare the computer for handling FlightGear 's graphics -routines. FlightGear is based on a graphics library called OpenGL, thus you must install -either hardware or software OpenGL support for your graphics board (except, you did so -before, of course). - -

-Chapter 3, Building the plane: Compiling the program, explains how -to build, i. e. compile the simulator. Depending on your platform this may or may not be -required for you. There will at least be binaries available for those working on a Win32 -(i. e. Windows 98 © or Windows NT ©) platform. For those on such -systems, who want to take off immediately without going through the potentially -troublesome process of compiling, we recommend just skipping that chapter and going -directly to the next one. - -

-In chapter 4, Preflight: Installing FlightGear , you find -instructions for installing the binaries in case you did not so by building them in the -previous chapter. Moreover, you'll have to install scenery and texture files, which will -be described there, too. - -

-The following chapter 5, Takeoff: How to start the program, -describes how to start the program including an overview on the command line options. - -

-Flight: Keystrokes, HUD, and all that, chapter 6, describes how to -operate the program, i. e. to actually fly with FlightGear . This includes several lists -of key strokes as well as a detailed description of the HUD (head up display) as the -primary instrument for controlling the plane. - -

-In chapter 7, Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the -plane, we would like to give credits to those who did the hard work and give an outlook -on what remains to be done. - -

-Finally: We kindly ask others to help us improving this document by submitting -corrections, improvements, and more. Notably, we invite others to contribute descriptions -referring to alternative setups (graphics cards, operating systems, and compilers etc.). -We will be more than happy to include those into forthcoming versions of this -Installation and Getting Started (of course not without giving credit to the -authors). - -

-We hope to continuously maintain this document at least for a foreseeable future, but -probably will not be able to produce a new one for any single release of FlightGear . -While we are both watching the mailing lists, it might help, if developers adding new -functionality could send us a short note. - -

-

-Chapter 2
Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL - graphics drivers - -

-FlightGear 's graphics engine is based on a graphics library - called -OpenGL -. Its primary advantage is it's platform independence, i. e., programs -written with OpenGL - support can be compiled and executed on several platforms, -given the proper drivers having been installed in advance. Thus, independent of if you -want to run the binaries only or if you want to compile the program yourself you must -install some sort of OpenGL - support for your video card -. Naturally, you -can skip this chapter in case you already did (maybe for Quake or some other game). - -

-Unfortunately, there are so many graphics boards, graphics chips and -drivers that we are unable to provide a complete description for all -systems at present, but we hope to be able to extend that section with -the help of others soon. To give beginners a hand, we just describe -what we did to install drivers on our systems. - -

-By any means, should you try getting hardware OpenGL - drivers for your system, -which is exemplary described in sections 2.1 to 2.4, resp. If you -are unable to locate any such drivers you can try software support - as detailed under 2.5. - -

-

-2.1  3DFX - under Linux - -

- -

-An excellent place to search for documentation about Linux and 3D -accelerators is the Linux 3Dfx HOWTO at - -

-http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/xf3D/howto/3Dfx-HOWTO.html. - -

-It describes all the following steps in an in-depth fashion and -should be your first aid in case something goes wrong with your 3D -setup. - -

-The 3DFX - graphics card is a quite popular one (We tested -the Voodoo -1 to work). At first, you need the GLIDE - -library installed. Grab it at: - -

-http://www.3dfx.com/software/download_glidel.html - -

- and install it. -Be careful, you need different Glide libraries for the different types of VooDoos (I, II, Banshee). -There is even an install script included that will do things for you. The canonical place -for GLIDE - is /usr/local/glide, if you prefer another location, you'll -have to edit the Makefile for FlightGear by hand. Be sure to read and understand the -file /usr/local/glide/README. Next, you need to install the MESA - library -version 3.0 (or later). Grab it at - -

- ftp://iris.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/Mesa, - -

- unpack it and run - -

- make linux-glide - -

- in the Mesa directory. Follow the instructions in the README -file, take a close look at README.3DFX and play with the demo -programs. - -

-Besides these, you need the GLUT - library version 3.7 (or -greater, aka GameGLUT) installed. Grab it at: - -

- http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html. - -

- Note: Glut-3.7 is included with Mesa 3.0 so if you've already grabbed -the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you need. - -

-Finally, some more notes on the behavior of Voodoo - boards: - -

-Your card comes packaged with a loop-through-cable -. If you -have only one monitor, then the Voodoo will take it over when -used. This means that all the applications on your desktop will -continue running but you'll only see the FlightGear screen. If -your window manager uses a focus-follows-mouse policy, don't move -the mouse. If you lose the focus, there's no way to shut down -FlightGear graciously! Better solution: Use two monitors, one for -your desktop, connect the other one to your accelerator. You'll -then get a window on your desktop which manages all keyboard -events and you're still able to see your desktop. - -

-Running FlightGear under Linux using a 3DFX accelerator board is -somewhat tricky. Most of the boards behavior is controlled by -environment variables. - The two most -important are: - -

- -

This completes preparing your 3DFX - equipped Linux PC for -running FlightGear . -Now proceed and install the support files as described later in this document. - -

-

-2.2  Rendition Chipset - under - Windows 98/NT - -

- -

-This section serves as an example for installing OpenGL - -drivers under Windows 98/NT -. The Rendition 2100 -chipset - is, for instance, part of the Diamond Stealth II - -card performing especially well in somewhat weaker machines. - -

-Diamond itself does not provide any OpenGL - driver support for that board. -However, Rendition, who make the graphics chip, do. Go to their Web site and grab the -latest OpenGL - Windows drivers - from - -

- http://www.rendition.com/download.html - -

- Follow the description in readme.txt. We recommend making -the drivers the default ones by copying them to -\windows\system (which avoids the -hassle of not being sure which driver actually runs). - -

-With this step you're already done. - -

-According to our experience, so-called mini-OpenGL - drivers -provided by some manufacturers for making Quake playable do not -provide the level of OpenGL support required by FlightGear . At -least, Rendition's mini-OpenGL - driver definitely does not. - -

-

-2.3  RIVA TNT Chipset - under - Windows 98/NT - -

- -

-Because of its high performance, the RIVA TNT is one of the most popular chipsets today. -The Diamond Viper 550 -, ELSA Erazor-2, Creative Graphics Blaster -, and -more cards are equipped with this chip. At least the default Viper 550 drivers are known -to us having native built-in OpenGL support making any add-on OpenGL drivers obsolete. -Similar things should apply to the other RIVA TNT based cards. In any case, NVIDIA's -reference drivers being available from - -

- http://www.nvidia.com/ - -

- do the job as well. - -

-

-2.4  3DFX chip based boards - under - Windows 98/NT - -

- -

-The 3DXF - based 3D add-on or 2D/3D boards are perhaps the -most popular ones today at all. 3DFX - made Beta OpenGL -Windows 98 drivers available on their Website at - -

-http://www.3dfx.com. - -

- From the main page go to Develop 3DFX and further to SDKs and -Demos and grab them there. - -

-First, make sure you have the file glu32.dll either under -\Windows\System or elsewhere in your path. If not, install -the MS OpenGL kit opengl95 available from Microsoft or elsewhere on the net. -(Which by itself only provides software rendering.) - -

-Next, locate the file 3dfxopengl.dll. in the 3DFX driver package, rename it to -opengl32.dll and copy it into \Windows\System -overwriting the file with the same name installed from the MS kit. This should get you -going. - -

-

-2.5  OpenGL - software rendering - -under Windows 98/NT -

- -

-If you have an accelerated 3D card, it is highly recommended you -install hardware OpenGL - drivers for your specific card. - -

-However, in case you are really unable to find such drivers and -want to try FlightGear despite this you can install SGI software -OpenGL - rendering. For this purpose, get the file -sgi-opengl2.exe from - -

-http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/. - -

- This is a Windows 98/NT - self extracting installation -program. Install it by double-clicking in Windows explorer. The -package includes some demo games you may wish to try by invoking -them from the Start menu. - -

-

-Chapter 3
Building the plane: Compiling - the program -

-This major chapter describes how to build FlightGear on several systems. In case you are -on a Win32 (i. e. Windows 98 or Windows NT) platform you may not want to go though that -potentially troublesome process but instead skip that chapter and straightly go to the -next one. (Not everyone wants to build his or her plane himself or herself, right?) -However, there may be good reason at least to try building the simulator: - -

- -

-

-As you will note, this chapter is far from being complete. Basically, we describe -compiling for two operating systems only, Windows 98/NT - and Linux -. There -is a simple explanation for this: These are just the systems we are working on. We hope -to be able to provide descriptions for more systems based on contributions written by -others. - -

-

-3.1  Compiling - under Linux -

- -

-If you are running Linux you probably have to build your own -binaries -. The following is one way to do so. - -

- -

    -
  1. Get the file FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz from the -source subdirectory under - -

    - http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/ - -

    - -

  2. Unpack it using : - -

    - tar xvfz FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz. - -

    - -

  3. cd into FlightGear-x.xx. Run: - -

    - ./configure - -

    - and wait a few minutes. configure - knows about a lot of -options. Have a look at the file INSTALL in the -FlightGear source directory to learn about them. If run without -options, configure assumes that you will install the data files -under /usr/local/lib/FlightGear. - -

    - -

  4. Assuming configure finished successfully, simply run - -

    - make - -

    - and wait for the make process to finish. - -

    - -

  5. Now become root (for example by using the su command) and -type - -

    - make install. - -

    - This will install the binaries - in /usr/local/bin. - -

    -There is a problem concerning permissions under Linux/Glide. All -programs accessing the accelerator board need root permissions. -The solution is either to play as root or make the -/usr/local/bin/fgfs binary setuid root, i.e. -when this binary is run root privileges are given. Do this by -issuing (as root) - -

    - chmod +s /usr/local/bin/fgfs. - -

    - A solution for this problem is upcoming, keep an eye on the 3Dfx -website if you run a 3Dfx board. - -

    -

-3.2  Compiling - under Windows 98/NT -

- -

- -

    -
  1. Contrary to Linux which brings its own compiler Windows comes -not equipped with developmental tools. Several compilers have been shown to work for -compiling FlightGear , including the Cygnus Win32 port of GNU C -++ and the -MS Visual C5 - compiler. Given that the project will be a free one we prefer the -Cygnus Compiler as it provides a free development environment. However, we will be happy -to include a proper description in case those who worked out how to compile with MSVC or -other Compilers provide one to us. - -

    - -

  2. Install and configure the Cygnus - Gnu-Win32 development - environment. The latest version is Beta 20. The main - Cygnus Gnu-Win32 page is at: - -

    - http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/. - -

    - You can download the Cygnus Gnu-Win32 compiler from: - -

    - ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/gnu-win32/latest/cdk.exe. - -

    - To install it, just run the file cdk.exe by double-clicking in - Windows explorer. Be sure to read this package's README : - -

    - http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/readme_toc.html. - -

    - Next, you need several UNIX developmental tools, being compiled for - Windows 98/NT. These are bundled in the package usertools. Get it - from - -

    - ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/gnu-win32/latest/usertools.exe - -

    - and install it by double-clicking as well. After doing so you should - find a program group called Cygnus Solutions in your start menu. - -

    - -

  3. Compiling FlightGear requires you to install the EGCS - -upgrade to the Cygnus - environment being available from: - -

    -http://www.xraylith.wisc.edu/~khan/software/gnu-win32/egcs.html - -

    - Again, make sure you follow the directions. It is recommended that you unroll the - EGCS - stuff over top of your Cygwin32 installation. It will replace many of - the files. - -

    - -

  4. Open the Cygnus bash via its entry in the Start menu. - Mount the drive as follows (assuming your FlightGear drive is d:): - -

    - mkdir /mnt
    - mount d: /mnt - -

    - You only have to do this once. The drive stays mounted (until you - umount it) even through reboots and switching off the machine. - -

    - -

  5. Fetch the Flight Gear code and special Win32 libraries -. These -can be found at: - -

    - http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/Source - -

    - Grab the latest FlightGear-X.XX.zip and - win32-libs-X.XX.zip files. - -

    - -

  6. Unpack the FlightGear source code via - -

    - pkunzip -d FlightGear-X.XX.zip. - -

    - (Be sure to use the -d option. This will create all the needed - subdirectories. Otherwise you will have one big mess!) - -

    - -

  7. Change to the newly created FlightGear-X.XX directory with e. g. - -

    -cd //D/FlightGear-X.XX - -

    - and unpack the Win32 libraries: - -

    - pkunzip -d win32-libs-X.XX.zip. - -

    - -

  8. You will find a file called install.exe in the Win32 -directory after unzipping win32-libs-X.XX.zip. This -version of install.exe should replace the one in your -\H-i386-cygwin32\bin directory - -it's sole claim to fame is that it understands that when many -calls to it say install foo they mean install -foo.exe. If you skip this step and attempt an install with the -older version present make install will fail. - -

    -Side Note: We need to make a distinction between the -build tree - and the install tree -. -The build tree is what we've been talking about up until -this point. This is where the source code lives and all the -compiling takes place. Once the executables are built, they need -to be installed someplace. We shall call this install location -the install tree. This is where the executables, the -scenery, the textures, and any other run-time files will be -located. - -

    - -

  9. Configure the make system for your environment and your -install tree. Tell the configure script where you would like to install the -binaries - and all the scenery - and textures - by using the ---prefix option. In the following example the base of the install -tree is FlightGear. Make your you are within FlightGear 's root directory or -change to it. - -

    - -

  10. Run: - - -

    - ./configure --prefix=/mnt/FlightGear. - -

    - Side note: The make procedure is designed to link against opengl32.dll, glu32.dll, and -glut32.dll which most accelerated boards require. If this does not apply to yours or if -you installed SGI's software rendering - as mentioned in subsection 2.5 -you may have to change these to opengl.dll, glu.dll, and glut.dll. (In case you're in -doubt check your \windows\system directory what you've -got.) - -

    - If this is the case for your video card -, you can edit - .../Simulator/Main/ Makefile and rename these three libraries to - their "non-32" counterparts. There is only one place in this - Makefile where these files are listed. - -

    - -

  11. Build the executable. Run: - -

    - make. - -

    - -

  12. Assuming you have installed the updated version of -install.exe (see earlier instructions) you can now create -and populate the install tree. Run: - -

    - make install. - -

    - You can save a significant amount of space by stripping all the - debugging symbols off of the executable. To do this, change to the - directory in the install tree where your binary lives and run: - -

    - strip fgfs.exe resp. strip fgfs-sgi.exe. - -

    -

-Chapter 4
Preflight: Installing FlightGear -

- -

-

-4.1  Installing the Binaries

- -You can skip this section and go to the installation of scenery in -case you built FlightGear along the lines describes during the -previous chapter. If you did not and you're jumping in here your -first step consists in installing the binaries. At present, there -are only pre-compiled binaries - available for -Windows 98/NT - while in principle it might be possible to -create (statically linked) binaries for Linux - as well. - -

-The following supposes you are on a Windows 98 or Windows -NT - system. Installing the binaries is quite -simple. Go to the FlightGear downloads page - -

- http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/ - -

- and get the latest binaries from the binaries subdirectory named - -

-fg-win32-bin-X.XX.exe - -

- and unpack them via double clicking. This will create a directory FlightGear -with several subdirectories. You are done. - -

-

-4.2  Installing Support files -

- -

-Independent on your operating system and independent on if you -built the binaries yourself or installed the precompiled ones as -described above you will need scenery -, texture -, -and sound - files. A basic package of all these is contained -in the binaries directory mentioned above as - -

- fgfs-base-X.XX. - -

- Preferably, you may want to download the .tar.gz version -if you are working under Linux -/UNIX - and the .exe version if you -are under Windows 98/NT -. Make sure you get the most recent version. - -

-If you're working under Linux - or UNIX -, unpack the -previously downloaded file with - -

- tar xvfz fgfs-base-X.XX.tar.gz, - -

- while under Windows 98/NT - just double click on the file (being situated in the -root of your FlightGear drive.). - -

-This already completes installing FlightGear and should enable -you to invoke the program. - -

-Some more scenery which, however, is not a substitute for the -package mentioned above but rather is based on it can be found in -the scenery subdirectory under - -

- http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/ - -

- These may be older versions which may or may not work with the -most recent binaries. - -

-In addition, there is a complete set of USA Scenery files - -available created by Curt Olson - which can be -downloaded from - -

-ftp://ftp.kingmont.com/pub/kingmont/index.html. - -

- The complete set covers several 100's of MBytes. Thus, Curt -provides the complete set on CD-ROM for those who really would -like to fly over all of the USA. For more detail, check the -remarks in the downloads page above. - -

-Finally, the binaries directory mentioned contain the complete -FlightGear documentation including a .pdf version of this -Installation and Getting Started guide intended for -pretty printing using Adobe's Acrobat reader being available from - -

-http://www.adobe.com/acrobat. - -

- on any printer. - -

-

-Chapter 5
Takeoff: How to start the program -

- -

-

-5.1  Starting under Linux

-Under Linux, FlightGear is invoked by - -

- fgfs --option1 --option2..., - -

- where the options are described in section 5.3 below. - -

-

-5.2  Starting under Windows 98/NT -

- -

-In Windows explorer, change to \FlightGear\. Call -runfgfs.bat by double-clicking if you want to invoke the hardware accelerated -version of FlightGear fgfs.exe, or runfgfs-sgi.bat if you installed -SGI's software OpenGL - support. - -

-Alternatively, if for one or the other reason the batch does not work, you can open an -MS-DOS shell, change to the directory where your binary resides (typically something like -d:\FlightGear\bin where you might have to substitute -d: in favor of your FlightGear directory), set the environment variable with - -

-SET FG_ROOT=d:\FlightGear\bin - -

- and invoke FlightGear (within the same shell - Windows environment - settings are only valid locally within the same shell) via - -

-fgfs --option1 --option2.... - -

-For getting maximum performance it is highly recommended to -minimize (iconize) the non-graphics window while running -FlightGear . -


-

- -



Fig. 2: Ready for takeoff. We are at the default startup -position in Arizona. -


-

-

-5.3  Command line parameters -

- - - -

-Following is a list and short description of the command line options available. In case -of Windows 98/NT it is recommended to include these in runfgfs.bat. - -

-

-5.3.1  General Options

- -

- -

-5.3.2  Features

- -

- -

-5.3.3  Initial Position and Orientation -

- -

- -

-5.3.4  Rendering Options -

- -

- -

-Chapter 6
Flight: Keystrokes, - the HUD - and all that -

- -

-

-6.1  Keyboard commands

- -

-At present, support for using a joystick - or yoke - -is just in its early stages. It may or may not work - just try -it! In any case, you can use keyboard commands - instead. -For proper controlling via keyboard (i) the -NumLock - key must be switched on (ii) the -FlightGear window must have focus (if not, click with the mouse -on the graphics window). - -

-After activating NumLock the following keyboard -commands - should work: -


-

- Tab. 1: Main keyboard commands - for FlightGear . -


-

- -

-
-
Key Action -
Pg Up/Pg Dn Throttle -
Left Arrow/Right Arrow Aileron -
Up Arrow/Down Arrow Elevator -
Ins/Enter Rudder -
5 Center aileron/elevator/rudder -
Home/End Elevator trim
- -

-

- - -For changing views you have to de-activate NumLock. Now -Shift + < Numeric Keypad Key > changes the -view as follows: -

- -

- Tab. 2: View directions - -accessible after de-activating NumLock. -


-

- -

-
-
Numeric Key View direction -
Shift-8 forward -
Shift-7 left/forward -
Shift-4 left -
Shift-1 left/back -
Shift-2 back -
Shift-3 right/back -
Shift-6 right -
Shift-9 right/forward
- -

-

- - -Moreover, the autopilot - is controlled via the following -controls: -


-

- Tab. 3: Autopilot controls. - -


-

- -

-
-
Key Action -
Ctrl + A Altitude hold toggle on/off -
Ctrl + H Heading hold toggle on/off -
Ctrl + S Autothrottle toggle on/off -
Ctrl + T Terrain follow toggle on/off
- -

-

-


The last one is especially interesting as it makes your -Navion - behave like a cruise missile. - -

-Besides these basic keys there are some more special ones; most of -these you'll probably not want to try during your first flight: -


-

- Tab. 4: More control commands. -


-

- -

-
-
Key Action -
H/h Change color of HUD/toggle HUD off forward/backward -
i/I Minimize/maximize HUD -
m/M Change time offset (warp) used by t/T forward/backward -
t/T Time speed up/slow down forward/backward -
x/X Zoom in/out -
z/Z Change visibility (fog) forward/backward -
b Toggle brakes on/off -
p Toggle pause on/off -
W Toggle fullscreen mode on/off (Mesa/3dfx/Glide only) -
F8 Toggle fog on/off -
F9 Toggle texturing on/off -
F10 Toggle menu on/off -
ESC Exit program
- -

-

-


-6.2  The head up display

- -

-At present, the main instrument for controlling the plane is the -HUD - (Head Up Display - -, see Fig. 1). Neither are HUD -s -used in usual general aviation planes nor in civilian ones. Rather -they belong to the equipment of modern military jets. However, in -view of the fact that the panel - is still in the early -stages of development the HUD - is the main instrument for -controlling the plane for now. Besides, it might be easier to fly -using this one than exploiting a panel - and several of the -real pilots might prefer it because of combining the readouts of -critical parameters with an outside view onto the real world. -(Several Cessna - pilots might love to have one, but -technology is simply too expensive for implementing HUDs in -general aviation aircrafts.) -


-

- -



Fig. 3: The HUD, or head up display, as the present main -FlightGear instrument. -


-

-The most important information for navigating, i. e. -throttle -, elevation -, aileron - can be found -on the r.h.s of the HUD -. These are just given on a scale -between 0 and 1. Above these you find the AOA - -(angle of attack -; the angle between the wings and the -relative wind i. e. the direction of airflow), the -heading - given in degrees, and the sideslip -. - -

-On the left hand side you find the speed - in kts and the -roll - given in degrees. You may recall the Navion - -taking off at a speed of 100 kts. Still further left you find the -FOV - (= field of view -) in degrees. -Zooming - in and out with the x/X keys changes this one. -The value below that, the number of triangles - rendered is -usually not of importance for you as a pilot (and can be switched -off via a corresponding startup option). Below you find the -frame rate -, displaying the frames per second. - -

-Besides these figures, most of the flight parameters and flight -characteristics are displayed graphically in the upper half of the -screen. In the center you find the pitch indicator - (in -degrees) with the aileron indicator - above and the -rudder indicator - below. A corresponding readoff for the -elevation - can be found to the left of -the pitch scale. Below the pitch indicator - you will find a -simple turn indicator -. - -

-There are two scales further left: The inner one displays the -speed - (in kts) while the outer one gives the -vertical speed - (climb/sink rate -). The two scales -on the r.h.s display your height -, i. e. the left of it -shows the height above ground while the right of it gives that -above zero, both being displayed in feet. - -

-Based on these keystrokes and the HUD you should be able to -properly control the plane. Try it! The functions already -implemented are completely sufficient for even doing complicated -manoeuvres. - -

-In addition, FlightGear has a rudimentary menu which, however, is -not yet working. If you're done and are about to leave the plane, -just hit the ESC key to exit the program. - -

-If you are looking for some interesting places to discover with -FlightGear (which may or may not require downloading additional -scenery) you may want to check - -

- http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/Places. - -

-

-Chapter 7
Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane -

- -

-

-7.1  Those, who did the work

- -

-Did you enjoy the flight? In case you did, don't forget those who devoted hundreds of -hours to that project. All of this work is done on a voluntary basis within spare time, -thus bare with the programmers - in case something does not work the way you want -it to. Instead, sit down and write them a kind (!) letter proposing what to change. -Alternatively, you can subscribe to the FlightGear mailing lists - and contribute -your thoughts there. Instructions to do so can be found under - -

- http://www.flightgear.org/mail.html. - -

-Essentially there are two lists, one of which being mainly for the developers and the -other one for users. - -

- These are the people who did the job (This information was -essentially taken from the file Thanks accompanying the -code): -


-

- Raul Alonzo - (amil@las.es)
Author of Ssystem and -moon texture. -


-

- Michele America - -(nomimarketing@mail.telepac.pt)
- Contributed to the HUD - code. -


-

- Steve Baker - (sjbaker@hti.com)
- Author of PUI - (a graphical interface written entirely on top of - OpenGL -/GLUT -). Author of the basic - audio library - used in FlightGear . An immense amount of coaching and tutelage, - both on the subjects of flight simulation and OpenGL -. It has been - his comments and thoughts that have prompted the implementation of - most of the more sophisticated features of FlightGear . -


-

- Michael Basler - (pmb@knUUt.de)
- Coauthor of Installation and Getting Started (together with Bernhard - Buckel). -


-

- John S. Berndt - (jsb@hal-pc.org)
- Working on a complete C++rewrite/reimplimentation of the core FDM. - Initially he is using X15 data to test his code, but once things are - all in place we should be able to simulator arbitrary aircraft. -


-

- Paul Bleisch - (pbleisch@acm.org)
- Paul redid the debug system so that it would be much more - flexible, so it could be easily disabled for production system, and - so that messages for certain subsystems could be selectively - enabled. - -

- Also contributed a first stab at a config file/command line parsing - system. -


-

- Jim Brennan - (jjb@foothill.net)
- Provided a big chunk of online space to store USA scenery for Flight Gear. -


-

- Bernie Bright - (bbright@c031.aone.net.au)
- Many C++ style, usage, and implementation improvements, STL - portability and much, much more. -


-

- Bernhard H. Buckel - -(buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de)
- Contributed the README.Linux. Coauthor of Installation - and Getting Started (together with Michael Basler). -


-

- Gene Buckle - (geneb@nwlink.com)
- Gene has done a lot of work getting FlightGear to compile with the MSVC -++ - compiler. Numerous hints on detailed improvements. -


-

- Didier Chauveau - (chauveau@math.univ-mlv.fr)
- Provided some initial code to parse the 30 arcsec DEM files found at: - -

- http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/gtopo30/gtopo30.html. -


-

- Jean-Francois Doue -
- Vector 2D, 3D, 4D and Matrix 3D and 4D inlined C++ classes. (Based on - Graphics Gems IV ed. Paul S. Heckbert) - -

-http://www.animats.com/simpleppp/ftp/public_html/topics/developers.html. -


-

- Francine Evans - (evans@cs.sunysb.edu) - -

-http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~evans/stripe.html - -

- Wrote the GPL'd tri-striper. -


-

- Oscar Everitt - (bigoc@premier.net)
- Created single engine piston engine sounds as part of an F4U package - for FS98 -. They are pretty cool and Oscar was happy to contribute - them to our little project. -


-

- Jean-loup Gailly - and Mark Adler - -(zlib@quest.jpl.nasa.gov)
- Authors of the zlib library -. Used for on-the-fly compression and - decompression routines, - -

- http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/. -


-

- Thomas Gellekum - (tg@ihf.rwth-aachen.de)
- Changes and updates for compiling on FreeBSD -. -


-

- Jeff Goeke-Smith - (jgoeke@voyager.net)
- Contributed our first autopilot - (Heading Hold). - Better autoconf check for external timezone/daylight variables. -


-

- Michael I. Gold - (gold@puck.asd.sgi.com)
- Patiently answered questions on OpenGL -. -


-

- Charlie Hotchkiss - -(chotchkiss@namg.us.anritsu.com)
Worked on improving and enhancing the -HUD - code. Lots of code style tips and code tweaks... -


-

- Bruce Jackson - (NASA) (e.b.jackson@larc.nasa.gov) - -

- http://agcbwww.larc.nasa.gov/People/ebj.html - -

- Developed the LaRCsim - code under funding by NASA which we use to provide the - flight model. Bruce has patiently answered many, many questions. -


-

- Tom Knienieder - (knienieder@ms.netwing.at)
- Ported Steve Bakers's audio library - to Win32. -


-

- Reto Koradi - (kor@mol.biol.ethz.ch) - -

-http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/~kor - -

- Helped with setting up fog effects -. -


-

- Bob Kuehne - (rpk@sgi.com)
- Redid the Makefile system so it is simpler and more robust. -


-

- Vasily Lewis - (vlewis@woodsoup.org) - -

- http://www.woodsoup.org - -

- Provided computing resources and services so that the Flight Gear - project could have real home. This includes web services, ftp - services, shell accounts, email lists, dns services, etc. -


-

- Eric Mitchell - (mitchell@mars.ark.com)
- Contributed some topnotch scenery textures -. -


-

- Anders Morken - (amrken@online.no)
- Maintains the European mirror of the FlightGear web pages. -


-

- Alan Murta - (amurta@cs.man.ac.uk) - -

- http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/alan/software/ - -

- Created the Generic Polygon Clipping library. -


-

- Curt Olson - (curt@flightgear.org)
- Primary organization of the project. First implementation - and modifications based on LaRCsim -. Besides putting together all - the pieces provided by others mainly concentrating on the scenery - engine - as well as the graphics stuff. -


-

- Friedemann Reinhard - -(mpt218@faupt212.physik.uni-erlangen.de)
- Development of textured instrument panel -. -


-

- Petter Reinholdtsen - (pere@games.no)
- Incorporated the Gnu automake/autoconf system (with libtool). - This should streamline and standardize the build process for all - UNIX-like platforms. It should have little effect on IDE type - environments since they don't use the UNIX make system. -


-

- William Riley - (riley@technologist.com)
- Contributed code to add ''brakes''. -


-

- Paul Schlyter - (pausch@saaf.se)
- Provided Durk Talsma with all the information he needed to write the astro code. -


-

- Chris Schoeneman - (crs@millpond.engr.sgi.com)
- Contributed ideas on audio support. -


-

- Jonathan R Shewchuk - -(Jonathan_R_Shewchuk@ux4.sp.cs.cmu.edu)
- Author of the Triangle - program. Triangle - is used to calculate the Delauney triangulation of our irregular terrain. -


-

- Gordan Sikic - (gsikic@public.srce.hr)
- Contributed a Cherokee flight model - for LaRCsim -. Currently is not - working and needs to be debugged. Use configure - --with-flight-model=cherokee - to build the cherokee instead of the Navion -. -


-

- Michael Smith - (msmith99@flash.net)
- Contributed cockpit graphics, 3d models, logos, and other images. - Project Bonanza - -

- http://members.xoom.com/ConceptSim/index.html. -


-

- U. S. Geological Survey - - -

-http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html - -

- Provided geographic data used by this project. -


-

- Durk Talsma - (pn_talsma@macmail.psy.uva.nl)
- Accurate Sun, Moon, and Planets. Sun changes color based on - position in sky. Moon has correct phase and blends well into the - sky. Planets are correctly positioned and have proper magnitude. -


-

- Gary R. Van Sickle - -(tiberius@braemarinc.com)
- Contributed some initial GameGLUT - support and other fixes. -


-

- Norman Vine - (nhv@laserplot.com)
- Many performance optimizations throughout the code. Many contributions - and much advice for the scenery generation section. Lots of Windows - related contributions. -


-

- Carmelo Volpe - (carmelo.volpe@csb.ki.se)
- Porting FlightGear to the Metro Works - development environment - (PC/Mac). -


-

- Robert Allan Zeh - (raz@cmg.FCNBD.COM)
- Helped tremendously in figuring out the Cygnus - Win32 compiler and - how to link with .dll's. Without him the first run-able Win32 - version of FlightGear would have been impossible. - -

-

-7.2  What remains to be done

-At first: If you read (and, maybe, followed) this guide until this -point you may probably agree that FlightGear , even -in its present state, is not at all for the birds. It is already a -flight simulator which has a flight model, a plane, terrain -scenery, texturing and simple controls. - -

-Despite, FlightGear needs - and gets - further development. Except internal tweakings, -there are several fields where FlightGear needs basics improvement and development. - -

-A first direction is adding airports -, streets, rivers and -all that bringing the Scenery to real life. - -

-Second, the panel - (being disabled by default at present) -needs further improvement including more working gauges. - -

-Besides, there should be support for adding more planes - -and for implementing corresponding flight models differing from -the basic Navion -. - -

-Another major task is further implementation of the menu -system -, which at its present state basically does nothing. - -

-Another direction concerns audio support -. While the audio -library itself is essentially complete there is a need for more -sounds to play and for code to drive it. - -

-There are already people working in all of these directions. But if you're a programmer -and think you can contribute, you are invited to do so. - -

- -

Achnowledgements

-Obviously this document could not have been written without all -those contributors mentioned above making FlightGear a reality. - -

-Beyond this we would like to say special thanks to Curt -Olson, - whose numerous scattered Readmes, -Thanks, Webpages, and personal eMails were of special help to us -and were freely exploited in the making of this booklet. - -

-Further, we would like to thank Kai Troester - for donating the -solution of some of his compile problems to our Chapter 8. - -

-In addition, we would like to thank Steve Baker - for a careful reading and for numerous hints on the first -draft of this guide. - -

-In addition we gained from hints given to Newcomers on the Mailing lists, notably from -those given by Norman Vine -, to name only one. - -

-

-Chapter 8
Missed approach: If anything refuses to work -

-We tried to sort problems - according to operating system to -a certain extent , but if you encounter a problem it may be a wise -idea to look beyond ''your'' operating system - just in case. - -

-

-8.1  General problems

- -

-8.2  Potential problems under Linux

- -

-Since we don't have access to all possible flavors of Linux distributions, here are some -thoughts on possible causes of problems. (This section includes contributions by Kai -Troester Kai.Troester@rz.tu-ilmenau.de.) - -

- -

-8.3  Potential problems under Windows95/NT

- -

- -

- - -

Index (showing section)

- -
FlightGear Flight School, - 1-4 -
FlightGear Programmer's Guide, - 3-0 -
FlightGear Scenery Design Guide, - 1-4 -
FlightGear Website, 1-2 -
FlightGear documentation, - 1-4 -
FlightGear home page, 1-4 -
3DFX, 2-1, 2-4 -
3DFX board, 8-2 -
3DFX chip, 2-4 -
3DXF, 2-4 - -

-

Adler, Mark, 7-1 -
aileron, 6-2 -
aileron indicator, 6-2 -
airport code, 5-3 -
airports, 7-2 -
Alonzo, Raul, 7-1 -
America, Michele, 1-2, - 7-1 -
angle of attack, 6-2 -
AOA, 6-2 -
astronomy code, 1-2 -
audio library, 7-1 -
audio support, 1-2, - 7-2 -
autopilot, 1-2, 6-1, - 7-1 -
autopilot controls, 6-1 - -

-

Baker, Steve, 1-2, - 7-1 -
Basler, Michael, 7-1 -
Berndt, John, S., 7-1 -
binaries, 3-1, 3-2, - 4-1 -
     installation, 4-1 -
binaries, pre-compiled, 3-0 -
Bleisch, Paul, 7-1 -
Brennan, Jim, 7-1 -
Bright, Bernie, 7-1 -
BSD UNIX, 1-1 -
Buckel, Bernhard H., 7-1 -
Buckle, Gene, 7-1 -
build tree, 3-2 - -

-

Cessna, 6-2 -
Chauveau, Didier, 7-1 -
Cherokee flight model, 7-1 -
climb/sink rate, 6-2 -
cockpit, 5-3 -
command line options, 5-3 -
compiler, 1-3 -
compiling, 3-0 -
     Linux, 3-1 -
     Windows 98/NT, 3-2 -
configure, 3-1, 3-2 -
Creative Graphics Blaster, - 2-3 -
Cygnus, 1-3, 3-2, - 7-1, 8-3 -
Cygnus Win32 port of GNU C, - 3-2 - -

-

Diamond Stealth II, 2-2 -
Diamond Viper 550, 2-3 -
documentation, 1-1 -
DOS, 1-1, 1-2 -
Doue, Jean-Francois, 7-1 - -

-

EGCS, 3-2 -
elevation, 6-2 -
elevation indicator, 6-2 -
environment variable, 2-1 -
Evans, Francine, 7-1 -
Everitt, Oscar, 7-1 - -

-

field of view, 5-3, - 6-2 -
Flight simulator -
     civilian, 1-1 -
     free, 1-2 -
     multi-platform, - 1-1 -
     open, 1-1 -
     user-extensible, - 1-1 -
     user-supported, - 1-1 -
Flight Unlimited II, 1-1 -
fog, 5-3 -
fog effects, 7-1 -
FOV, 6-2 -
frame rate, 1-2, - 1-3, 6-2 -
FreeBSD, 7-1 -
FS98, 1-1, 7-1 -
fullscreen display, 5-3 - -

-

Gailly, Jean-loup, 7-1 -
GameGLUT, 7-1 -
Gellekum, Thomas, 7-1 -
GLIDE, 2-1 -
Glide, 8-2 -
GLUT, 2-1, 7-1 -
GNU C++, 1-3 -
Gnu Public License, 1-1 -
Goeke-Smith, Jeff, 1-2, - 7-1 -
Gold, Michael, I., 7-1 -
graphics drivers, 2-0 -
graphics library, 2-0 -
graphics routines, 1-2 - -

-

haze, 5-3 -
head up display, 1-2, - 6-2 -
heading, 6-2 -
height, 6-2 -
history, 1-2 -
Hotchkiss, Charlie, 1-2, - 7-1 -
HUD, 1-2, 5-3, 6-0, - 6-2, 7-1, - 8-1 - -

-

initial heading, 5-3 -
initial pitch angle, 5-3 -
initial roll angle, 5-3 -
install tree, 3-2 -
instrument panel, 5-3 - -

-

Jackson, Bruce, 1-2, - 7-1 -
joystick, 1-3, 6-1 - -

-

keyboard commands, 6-1 -
keystrokes, 6-0 -
Knienieder, Tom, 1-2, - 7-1 -
Koradi, Reto, 7-1 -
Korpela, Eric, 1-2 -
Kuehne, Bob, 7-1 - -

-

LaRCsim, 1-2, 7-1 -
Lewis, Vasily, 7-1 -
Linux, 1-1, 1-2, - 1-3, 2-1, - 3-0, 3-1, - 4-1, 4-2 -
Looking Glass, 1-1 -
loop-through-cable, 2-1 - -

-

MacIntosh, 1-1 -
mailing lists, 7-1 -
menu system, 1-2 -
MESA, 2-1 -
Metro Works, 7-1 -
Microsoft, 1-1 -
military components, 1-1 -
mini-OpenGL, 2-2, - 8-3 -
Mitchell, Eric, 1-2, - 7-1 -
Morken, Anders, 7-1 -
MS DevStudio, 8-3 -
MS Visual C5, 3-2 -
MSVC, 1-3, 7-1, - 8-3 -
Murr, David, 1-2 -
Murta, Alan, 7-1 - -

-

Navion, 1-2, 6-1, - 6-2, 7-1, - 7-2 -
number of triangles, 6-2 -
NumLock, 6-1 - -

-

Olson, Curt, 1-2, - 4-2, 7-1, - 7-2 -
OpenGL, 1-2, 1-3, - 1-4, 2-0, - 2-2, 2-5, - 3-0, 5-2, - 7-1, 8-1 -
     drivers, 1-3 -
     software rendering, - 2-5 -
Operating Systems, 1-1 -
orientation, 5-3 -
OS/2, 1-1, 1-2 - -

-

panel, 1-2, 6-2, - 7-1, 7-2 -
panel code, 1-2 -
permissions, 8-2 -
pitch indicator, 6-2 -
planes, 7-2 -
problems, 8-0 -
programmers, 7-1 -
proposal, 1-2 -
PUI, 1-2, 7-1 - -

-

Reinhard, Friedemann, 1-2, - 7-1 -
Reinholdtsen, Petter, 7-1 -
rendering options, 5-3 -
Rendition chipset, 2-2 -
Riley, William, 7-1 -
RIVA TNT chipset, 2-3 -
roll, 6-2 -
rudder indicator, 6-2 - -

-

scenery, 1-2, 3-2, - 4-2 -
Schlyter, Paul, 7-1 -
Schoenemann, Chris, 7-1 -
SGI IRIX, 1-1 -
Shewchuk, Jonathan, 7-1 -
sideslip, 6-2 -
Sikic, Gordan, 7-1 -
Smith, Michael, 7-1 -
software rendering, 3-2 -
sound, 4-2 -
sound card, 1-3 -
sound effects, 1-3 -
source code, 1-1 -
speed, 6-2 -
Sun-OS, 1-2 -
SunOS, 1-1 -
Support files, 4-2 -
system requirements, 1-3 - -

-

Talsma, Durk, 1-2, - 7-1 -
terrain, 5-3 -
texture, 4-2 -
textures, 1-2, 3-2, - 7-1 -
throttle, 6-2 -
Torvalds, Linus, 1-1 -
triangle program, 7-1 -
Troester, Kai, 7-2 -
turn indicator, 6-2 - -

-

U. S. Geological Survey, - 1-2, - 7-1 -
UNIX, 1-2, 1-3, - 3-0, 4-2 -
USA Scenery files, 4-2 - -

-

van Sickle, Gary R., 7-1 -
vertical speed, 6-2 -
video card, 2-0, - 3-2 -
view directions, 6-1 -
view frustrum culling, 1-2 -
Vine, Norman, 1-2, - 7-1, - 7-2 -
Volpe, Carmelo, 7-1 -
Voodoo, 2-1 - -

-

Win32 libraries, 3-2 -
Windows 95/98, 1-1 -
Windows 95/NT, 1-2 -
Windows 98, 1-3 -
Windows 98/NT, 1-3, - 2-2, - 2-3, - 2-4, - 2-5, - 3-0, - 3-2, - 4-1, - 4-2, - 5-2 -
Windows drivers, 2-2 -
Windows NT, 1-1, - 1-3 -
workstation, 1-2, - 1-3 - -

-

yoke, 1-3, 6-1 - -

-

Zeh, Allan, 7-1 -
zlib library, 7-1 -
zoom, 6-2 - -

-

 -

File translated from TEX by TTH, version 1.57. - + + +FlightGear Flight Simulator - Installation and Getting Started +

FlightGear Flight Simulator - Installation and Getting Started

+ + +

+ +

Michael Basler (pmb@knUUt.de)
+ Bernhard Buckel + (buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de)
+ +

+

+

June 4, 1999

+ +

+ +

Contents

1  Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear !
chapter.1 +    1.1  Yet another Flight Simulator?
section.1.1 +    1.2  A short history of FlightGear
section.1.2 +    1.3  System requirements
section.1.3 +    1.4  Whom this guide is addressed to and how it is organized
section.1.4 +2  Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL graphics drivers
chapter.2 +    2.1  3DFX under Linux
section.2.1 +    2.2  Rendition Chipset under Windows 98/NT
section.2.2 +    2.3  RIVA TNT Chipset under Windows 98/NT
section.2.3 +    2.4  3DFX chip based boards under Windows 98/NT
section.2.4 +    2.5  OpenGL software rendering under Windows 98/NT
section.2.5 +3  Building the plane: Compiling the program
chapter.3 +    3.1  Compiling under Linux
section.3.1 +    3.2  Compiling under Windows 98/NT
section.3.2 +4  Preflight: Installing FlightGear
chapter.4 +    4.1  Installing the Binaries on a Windows system
section.4.1 +    4.2  Installing Support files
section.4.2 +5  Takeoff: How to start the program
chapter.5 +    5.1  Starting under Linux
section.5.1 +    5.2  Starting under Windows 98/NT
section.5.2 +    5.3  Command line parameters
section.5.3 +        5.3.1  General Options
subsection.5.3.1 +        5.3.2  Features
subsection.5.3.2 +        5.3.3  Flight model
subsection.5.3.3 +        5.3.4  Initial Position and Orientation
subsection.5.3.4 +        5.3.5  Rendering Options
subsection.5.3.5 +        5.3.6  Scenery Options Options
subsection.5.3.6 +        5.3.7  HUD Options
subsection.5.3.7 +        5.3.8  Time options
subsection.5.3.8 +6  Flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus
chapter.6 +    6.1  Keyboard commands
section.6.1 +    6.2  Menu entries
section.6.2 +    6.3  The head up display
section.6.3 +    6.4  The Panel
section.6.4 +7  Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane
chapter.7 +    7.1  Those, who did the work
section.7.1 +    7.2  What remains to be done
section.7.2 +8  Missed approach: If anything refuses to work
chapter.8 +    8.1  General problems
section.8.1 +    8.2  Potential problems under Linux
section.8.2 +    8.3  Potential problems under Windows 98/NT
section.8.3 + +

+

+Chapter 1
Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear ! +

+ +

+

+1.1  Yet another Flight Simulator?

+Did you ever want to fly a plane yourself, but lacked the money or +skills to do so? Do you belong to those real pilots, who want to +improve their skills without having to take off? Do you want to +try some dangerous maneuvers without risking your life? Or do you +just want to have fun with a more serious game not killing any +people? If any of these questions applies, PC flight simulators +are just for you. + +

+If you are reading this you might have got already some experience either using +Microsoft +'s © FS98 +, Looking Glass +' © +Flight Unlimited II + or any other of the commercially available PC flight +simulators. As the price tag of those is usually within the 50$ range buying one of them +should not be a serious problem given the fact, that running any serious PC flight +simulator requires a hardware within the 1500$ range, despite dropping prices, at least. + +

+Why then that effort of spending hundreds or thousands of hours of +programming to build a free simulator? Obviously there must be +good reason to do so: + +

+ +

+

+The above-mentioned points make FlightGear different from its competitors in several +respect. FlightGear aims to be a civilian, + +multi-platform, + open, + +user-supported, + user-extensible + simulator. + +

+ +

+

+ Without doubt, the success of the Linux + project initiated by Linus + Torvalds + inspired several of the developers. + Not only has it shown that distributed development of even highly sophisticated + software projects over the Internet is possible. It led to a product which, + in several respect, is better than its commercial competitors. + +

+

+1.2  A short history + of FlightGear

+ +

+This project goes back to a discussion of a group of net-citizens in 1996 resulting in a +proposal written by David Murr + who, unfortunately, dropped out from +the project (as well as the net) later. The original proposal + is still available +from the FlightGear web site and can be found under + +

+http://www.flightgear.org/proposal-3.0.1 + +

+Although the names of the people and several of the details +naturally changed in time, the spirit of that proposal was clearly +retained up to the present status of the project. + +

+Actual coding started in summer 1996 and by the end of that year essential graphics +routines were completed. At that time, programming was mainly done and coordinated by +Eric Korpela + from Berkeley University +(korpela@ssl.Berkeley.EDU). Early code was running under Linux + as well as +under DOS +, OS/2 +, Windows 95/NT +, and Sun-OS +. This was +quite an ambitious project, as it involved, among others, writing all the graphics +routines + in a system-independent way just from scratch. + +

+Development slowed down and finally stopped at the beginning of 1997 when Eric had to +complete his thesis. At this point, the project seemed to be dead and traffic on the +mailing list went down to nearly nothing. + +

+It was Curt Olson + from the University of Minnesota +(curt@flightgear.org) who re-started the project in the middle of 1997. His idea +was as simple as successful: Why invent the wheel a second time? There have been several +free flight simulators + available running on +workstation +s under different flavors of UNIX +. One of these, +LaRCsim +, having been developed by Bruce Jackson + from NASA +(jackson@larc.nasa.gov) seemed to be well-adapted for the present approach. Curt +took this one apart and re-wrote several of the routines in a way making them build-able +as well as run-able on the intended target platforms. The key idea in doing so was +selecting a system-independent graphics platform, i. e. OpenGL +, for the basic +graphics routines +. +


+

+ +



Fig. 1: The Navion + flight model is one of the features FlightGear +inherited from LaRCsim +. Until now it is the only one plane being fully realized +in FlightGear . +


+

+In addition, a clever decision on the selection of the basic scenery + data was +already made in this very first version. FlightGear Scenery is created based on +satellite data published by the U. S. Geological Survey +. These terrain data are +available for the whole world over the Internet for free from + +

+ http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html + +

+ for the US resp. + +

+ http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/gtopo30/gtopo30.html + +

+ for other countries. Those freely accessible scenery data in + conjunction with scenery building tools provided with + FlightGear are an important prerequisite enabling anyone to + create his or her own scenery, at least in principle. + +

+This new FlightGear code - still largely being based on original LaRCsim + code - +was released in July 1997. From that moment the project gained momentum again. Here are +some milestones from the more recent history of development: + +

+ +

This is by no way a complete history and a lot of people making even important +contributions were left out here. Besides the named achievements being more on the +surface there was a lot of work done concerning the internal structure, by Steve +Baker + (sjbaker@hti.com) +, Norman +Vine + (nhv@laserplot.com), Gary R. Van Sickle + (tiberius@braemarinc.com), and others. A more complete list of +contributors to the project can be found in Landing: Some further thoughts before +leaving the plane, Chapter 7, as well as in the file Thanks +provided with the code. Moreover, the FlightGear Website + contains a detailed +history of all of the development under + +

+http://www.flightgear.org/News/ + +

+

+1.3  System requirements

+ +Compared to other recent flight simulators the system requirements +for FlightGear are rather decent. A P100 is already sufficient, +given you have a proper 3D graphics card, but of course for +getting good performance we recommend a P200 or better, if you run +it on a PC. On the other hand, any not too ancient UNIX + +workstation + will run FlightGear as well. + +

+While in principle you can run FlightGear on 3D boards without OpenGL support or even on +systems without 3D graphics hardware at all, missing hardware OpenGL support can force +even the fastest PIII to its knees (frame rate +s typically below 1 fps). Any cheap +3D graphics card will do as long as it features hardware OpenGL + support. For +Windows 98/NT + drivers, you may contact the home page of the manufacturer. +Moreover, you should have in mind that several OpenGL drivers + are +still marked as beta and moreover, and sometimes these drivers are provided by the makers +of the graphics chip instead of the makers of the board. More detail on OpenGL drivers +can be found under + +

+http://www.x-plane.com/v4ibm.html + +

+ as well as under + +

+http://www.flightgear.org/Hardware. + +

+Next, you need around 16MB of free disk space for installing the executable including +basic scenery. In case you want to compile the program yourself you need around 50MB for +the source code and for temporary files created during compilation, independent of the +operating system. + +

+If you want to hear the sound effects + any decent sound card + should serve. +Besides, FlightGear supports a joystick + or yoke + as well as rudder +pedals + under Linux + as well as under Windows +. + +

+With respect to operating systems, FlightGear is being primarily developed under +Linux +, a free UNIX clone developed cooperatively over the net in much the same +way as the FlightGear project itself. Moreover, FlightGear runs under Windows +95 +, Windows 98 + and Windows NT + and given you have a proper +compiler + installed can be build under all of these platforms as well. The primary +compiler for all platforms is the free GNU C++ + (i. e. the Cygnus + +compiler under Win32), however there is some support for MSVC + as well. Moreover, +FlightGear runs and can be build on several UNIX +/X11 platforms with GNU C++ +installed. + +

+

+1.4  Whom this guide is addressed to and how it is organized

+ +

+At first: There is not much of the material in this Guide being originally invented by +ourself. You could even say with Montaigne that we ''merely gathered here a big bunch of +other men's flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the strip to hold them +together''. Most (but fortunately not all) of the information can as well be grabbed from +the FlightGear home page + being situated at + +

+http://www.flightgear.org/ + +

+ and its various sub pages. However, there still seems to +be a small group of people preferring neatly printed manuals over +loosely scattered Readmes and those may acknowledge our effort. + +

+This Installation and Getting Started is intended as being a first step towards +a more complete FlightGear documentation + (with the other parts, supposedly, to +be written by others). Its main addressee is the end-user who is not interested in the +internal workings of OpenGL + or in building his or her own scenery, for instance. +It is our hope, that sometime there will be an accompanying FlightGear +Programmer's Guide +, which could be based on some of the documentation under + +

+http://www.flightgear.org/Docs, + +

+ a FlightGear Scenery Design Guide +, and a +FlightGear Flight School +, at least. + +

+This Installation and Getting Started is organized as +follows: + +

+The first Chapter 2, Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL graphics +drivers, describes how to prepare the computer for handling FlightGear 's graphics +routines. FlightGear is based on a graphics library called OpenGL, thus you must install +either hardware or software OpenGL support for your graphics board (except, you did so +before). + +

+Chapter 3, Building the plane: Compiling the program, explains how +to build, i. e. compile the simulator. Depending on your platform this may or may not be +required for you. There will at least be binaries available for those working on a Win32 +(i. e. Windows 98 © or Windows NT ©) platform. For those on such +systems, who want to take off immediately without going through the potentially +troublesome process of compiling, we recommend just skipping that Chapter and going +directly to the next one. + +

+In Chapter 4, Preflight: Installing FlightGear , you find +instructions for installing the binaries in case you did not so by building them in the +previous Chapter. Moreover, you'll have to install scenery and texture files, which will +be described there, too. + +

+The following Chapter 5, Takeoff: How to start the program, +describes how to start the program including an overview on the command line options. + +

+Chapter 6, Flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus, +describes how to operate the program, i. e. to actually fly with +FlightGear . This includes a (hopefully) complete list of key strokes, an +overview on the menu entries, as well as a detailed description of the HUD (head up +display) and the panel. + +

+In Chapter 7, Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the +plane, we would like to give credits to those who did the hard work, and give an outlook +on what remains to be done. + +

+Finally: We kindly ask others to help us improving this document by submitting +corrections, improvements, and more. Notably, we invite others to contribute descriptions +referring to alternative setups (graphics cards, operating systems, and compilers etc.). +We will be more than happy to include those into forthcoming versions of this +Installation and Getting Started (of course not without giving credit to the +authors). + +

+We hope to continuously maintain this document at least for a foreseeable future, but +probably will not be able to produce a new one for any single release of FlightGear . +While we are both watching the mailing lists, it might help, if developers adding new +functionality could send us a short note. + +

+

+Chapter 2
Getting the engine: Installing OpenGL + graphics drivers + +

+FlightGear 's graphics engine is based on a graphics library + called +OpenGL +. Its primary advantage is it's platform independence, i. e., programs +written with OpenGL + support can be compiled and executed on several platforms, +given the proper drivers having been installed in advance. Thus, independent of if you +want to run the binaries only or if you want to compile the program yourself you must +install some sort of OpenGL + support for your video card +. Naturally, you +can skip this Chapter in case you already did (maybe for Quake or some other game). + +

+Unfortunately, there are so many graphics boards, graphics chips and drivers that we are +unable to provide a complete description for all systems. To give beginners a hand, we +just describe what we did to install drivers on our systems, which might be not too +exotic. + +

+By any means, try getting hardware OpenGL + drivers for your system, which is +exemplary described in Sections 2.1 to 2.4, resp. If you are +unable to locate any such drivers you can try software support + as detailed under 2.5. + +

+

+2.1  3DFX + under Linux + +

+ +

+An excellent place to search for documentation about Linux and 3D +accelerators is the Linux 3Dfx HOWTO at + +

+http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/xf3D/howto/3Dfx-HOWTO.html. + +

+It describes all the following steps in an in-depth fashion and +should be your first aid in case something goes wrong with your 3D +setup. + +

+The 3DFX + graphics card is a quite popular one (We tested +the Voodoo +1 to work). At first, you need the GLIDE + +library installed. Grab it at: + +

+http://www.3dfx.com/software/download_glidel.html + +

+ and install it. +Be careful, you need different Glide libraries for the different types of VooDoos (I, II, Banshee). +There is even an install script included that will do things for you. The canonical place +for GLIDE + is /usr/local/glide, if you prefer another location, you'll +have to edit the Makefile for FlightGear by hand. Be sure to read and understand the +file /usr/local/glide/README. Next, you need to install the MESA + library +version 3.0 (or later). Grab it at + +

+ ftp://iris.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/Mesa, + +

+ unpack it and run + +

+ make linux-glide + +

+ in the Mesa directory. Follow the instructions in the README +file, take a close look at README.3DFX and play with the demo +programs. + +

+Besides these, you need the GLUT + library version 3.7 (or +greater, aka GameGLUT) installed. Grab it at: + +

+ http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html. + +

+ Note: Glut-3.7 is included with Mesa 3.0 so if you've already grabbed +the latest version of mesa, you should have everything you need. + +

+Finally, some more notes on the behavior of Voodoo + boards: + +

+Your card comes packaged with a loop-through-cable +. If you +have only one monitor, then the Voodoo will take it over when +used. This means that all the applications on your desktop will +continue running but you'll only see the FlightGear screen. If +your window manager uses a focus-follows-mouse policy, don't move +the mouse. If you lose the focus, there's no way to shut down +FlightGear graciously! Better solution: Use two monitors, one for +your desktop, connect the other one to your accelerator. You'll +then get a window on your desktop which manages all keyboard +events and you're still able to see your desktop. + +

+Running FlightGear under Linux using a 3DFX accelerator board is +somewhat tricky. Most of the boards behavior is controlled by +environment variables. + The two most +important are: + +

+ +

This completes preparing your 3DFX + equipped Linux PC for running +FlightGear . +Now proceed and install the support files as described later in this document. + +

+

+2.2  Rendition Chipset + under + Windows 98/NT + +

+ +

+This Section serves as an example for installing OpenGL + drivers under +Windows 98/NT +. The Rendition 2100 chipset + is, for instance, included in +the Diamond Stealth II + card performing especially well in somewhat weaker +machines. + +

+Diamond itself does not provide any OpenGL + driver support for that board. +However, Rendition, who make the graphics chip, do. Go to their Web site and grab the +latest OpenGL + Windows drivers + from + +

+ http://www.rendition.com/download.html + +

+ Follow the description in readme.txt. We recommend making +the drivers the default ones by copying them to +\windows\system (which avoids the +hassle of not being sure which driver actually runs). + +

+With this step you're already done. + +

+According to our experience, so-called mini-OpenGL + drivers +provided by some manufacturers for making Quake playable do not +provide the level of OpenGL support required by FlightGear . At +least, Rendition's mini-OpenGL + driver definitely does not. + +

+

+2.3  RIVA TNT Chipset + under + Windows 98/NT + +

+ +

+Because of its high performance, the RIVA TNT is one of the most popular chipsets today. +The Diamond Viper 550 +, ELSA Erazor-2, Creative Graphics Blaster +, and +more cards come equipped with this chip. At least the default Viper 550 drivers are known +to us having native built-in OpenGL support making any add-on OpenGL drivers obsolete. +Similar things should apply to the other RIVA TNT based boards. In any case, NVIDIA's +reference drivers being available from + +

+ http://www.nvidia.com/ + +

+ do the job as well. + +

+

+2.4  3DFX chip based boards + under + Windows 98/NT + +

+ +

+The 3DXF + based 3D add-on or 2D/3D boards are perhaps the +most popular ones today at all. 3DFX + made Beta OpenGL +Windows 98 drivers available on their Website at + +

+http://www.3dfx.com. + +

+ From the main page go to Develop 3DFX and further to SDKs and +Demos and grab them there. + +

+First, make sure you have the file glu32.dll either under +\Windows\System or elsewhere in your path. If not, install +the MS OpenGL kit opengl95 available from Microsoft or elsewhere on the net +(which by itself only provides software rendering). + +

+Next, locate the file 3dfxopengl.dll. in the 3DFX driver package, rename it to +opengl32.dll and copy it into \Windows\System +overwriting the file with the same name installed from the MS kit. This should get you +going. + +

+

+2.5  OpenGL + software rendering + +under Windows 98/NT +

+ +

+If you have an accelerated 3D card, it is highly recommended you +install hardware OpenGL + drivers for your specific card. + +

+However, in case you are really unable to find such drivers and +want to try FlightGear despite this you can install SGI software +OpenGL + rendering. For this purpose, get the file +sgi-opengl2.exe from + +

+ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Misc/. + +

+ This is a Windows 98/NT + self extracting installation +program. Install it by double-clicking in Windows explorer. The +package includes some demo games you may wish to try by invoking +them from the Start menu. + +

+

+Chapter 3
Building the plane: Compiling + the program +

+This central Chapter describes how to build FlightGear on several systems. In case you +are on a Win32 (i. e. Windows 98 or Windows NT) platform you may not want to go though +that potentially troublesome process but instead skip that Chapter and straightly go to +the next one. (Not everyone wants to build his or her plane himself or herself, right?) +However, there may be good reason at least to try building the simulator: + +

+ +

+

+On the other hand, compiling FlightGear is not a task for novice users. Thus, if you're +a beginner (we all were once) we recommend postponing this and just starting with the +binary distribution to get you flying. + +

+As you will note, this Chapter is far from being complete. Basically, we describe +compiling for two operating systems only, Windows 98/NT + and Linux +. There +is a simple explanation for this: These are just the systems we are working on. We hope +to be able to provide descriptions for more systems based on contributions written by +others. + +

+

+3.1  Compiling + under Linux +

+ +

+If you are running Linux you probably have to build your own +binaries +. The following is one way to do so. + +

+ +

    +
  1. Get the file FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz from the +source subdirectory under + +

    + ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Source/ + +

    + +

  2. Unpack it using : + +

    + tar xvfz FlightGear-x.xx.tar.gz. + +

    + +

  3. cd into FlightGear-x.xx. Run: + +

    + ./configure + +

    + and wait a few minutes. configure + knows about a lot of +options. Have a look at the file INSTALL in the +FlightGear source directory to learn about them. If run without +options, configure assumes that you will install the data files +under /usr/local/lib/FlightGear. + +

    + +

  4. Assuming configure finished successfully, simply run + +

    + make + +

    + and wait for the make process to finish. + +

    + +

  5. Now become root (for example by using the su command) and +type + +

    + make install. + +

    + This will install the binaries + in /usr/local/bin. + +

    +There is a problem concerning permissions under Linux/Glide. All +programs accessing the accelerator board need root permissions. +The solution is either to play as root or make the +/usr/local/bin/fgfs binary setuid root, i.e. +when this binary is run root privileges are given. Do this by +issuing (as root) + +

    + chmod +s /usr/local/bin/fgfs. + +

    + A solution for this problem is upcoming, keep an eye on the 3Dfx +website if you run a 3Dfx board. + +

    +

+3.2  Compiling + under Windows 98/NT +

+ +

+ +

    +
  1. Windows, contrary to Linux which brings its own compiler, comes +not equipped with developmental tools. Several compilers have been shown to work for +compiling FlightGear , including the Cygnus Win32 port of GNU C +++ and the +MS Visual C + compiler. Given that the project will be a free one we prefer the +Cygnus Compiler as it provides a free development environment. However, we will be happy +to include a proper description in case those who worked out how to compile with MSVC or +other Compilers provide one. + +

    + +

  2. Install and configure the Cygnus + Gnu-Win32 development + environment. The latest version is Beta 20. The main + Cygnus Gnu-Win32 page is at: + +

    + http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/. + +

    + You can download the complete Cygnus Gnu-Win32 compiler from: + +

    + ftp://go.cygnus.com/pub/sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/latest/full.exe. + +

    + Be sure to read this package's README files to be found under the main page, first. + +

    + To install the compiler, just run full.exe by double-clicking in + Windows explorer. After doing so you'll find a program group called + Cygnus Solutions in your Start menu. Do not forget making a copy of the + shell under c:/bin, as detailed in the docs. + +

    + +

  3. Open the Cygnus shell via its entry in the Start menu. + Mount the drive where you want to build FlightGear as follows + (assuming your FlightGear drive is d:): + +

    + mkdir /mnt
    + mount d: /mnt + +

    + You only have to do this once. The drive stays mounted (until you + umount it) even through reboots and switching off the machine. + +

    + +

  4. Before actually being able to compile FlightGear you have to install a hand full +of support libraries required for building the simulator itself. Those go usually into +c:/usr/local and it is highly recommended to choose just that place. + +

    + First, you have to install the free win32 api library + (the latest + version being 0.1.5). Get the package win32api-0.1.5.tar.gz from: + +

    + http://www.acc.umu.se/ anorland/gnu-win32/w32api.html + +

    +Conveniently you may unpack the package just onto you FlightGear drive. Copy the file to +the named drive, open the Cygnus shell via the Start menu entry and change to the +previously mounted drive with + +

    + cd /mnt + +

    + Now, you can unpack the distribution with + +

    + gzip -d win32api-0.1.5.tar.gz
    + tar xvf win32api-0.1.5.tar + +

    + This provides you with a directory containing the named libraries. For installing them, + change to that directory with + +

    +cd win32api-0.1.5 + +

    +and type + +

    + make
    + make install + +

    +This installs the libraries to their default locations under c:/usr/local + +

    + +

  5. To proceed, you need the glut libraries +. Get these from the same site named +above + +

    +http://www.acc.umu.se/ anorland/gnu-win32/w32api.html + +

    +as glutlibs-3.7beta.tar.gz. Just copy the package to your FlightGear drive and +unpack it in the same way as describes above. There is no need to run make here. +Instead, just copy the two libraries libglut.a and libglut32.a to +c:/usr/local/lib. There is no need for the two accompanying *.def files +here. + +

    + +

  6. Next, get the Glut header files +, for instance, from + +

    +ftp:://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Win32/Mesa-3.0-includes.zip + +

    +Unpack these as usual with unzip -d and copy the contents of the resulting +directory /gl to c:/usr/local/include/gl + +

    + +

  7. Finally, you need Steve Backer's PLIB + being one of the key libraries for FlightGear . +Get the most recent version plib-X.X.tar.gz from + +

    +http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/plib/ + +

    +(There are mirrors, but make sure they contain the most recent version!). Copy it to your +FlightGear drive, open the Cygnus shell and unpack the library as described above. + +

    +Next, change into PLIB +'s directory. It is recommended to configure PLIB + +with the following command line (you can make a script as I did if it hurts) + +

    +CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -Wall"
    CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include +LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib ./configure +-prefix=/usr/local
    + -includedir=/usr/local/include/plib + +

    +You must write all this on one line without any line breaks in between! + +

    +Finally, build PLIB + with + +

    + make
    + make install + +

    + +

  8. Now, you're finally prepared to build FlightGear itself. + +

    + Fetch the FlightGear code and special Win32 libraries +. These +can be found at: + +

    + ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Source/ + +

    + Grab the latest FlightGear-X.XX.zip and + win32-libs-X.XX.zip files. + +

    +(It you're really into adventures, you can try one of the recent snapshots instead.) + +

    + +

  9. Unpack the FlightGear source code via + +

    + pkunzip -d FlightGear-X.XX.zip. + +

    + +

  10. Change to the newly created FlightGear-X.XX directory with e. g. + +

    +cd //D/FlightGear-X.XX + +

    + and unpack the Win32 libraries there: + +

    + pkunzip -d win32-libs-X.XX.zip. + +

    + +

  11. You will find a file called install.exe in the Win32 +directory after unzipping win32-libs-X.XX.zip. This +version of install.exe should replace the one in your +\H-i386-cygwin32\bin directory - +it's sole claim to fame is that it understands that when many +calls to it say install foo they mean install +foo.exe. If you skip this step and attempt an install with the +older version present make install will fail. + +

    +Side Note: We need to make a distinction between the +build tree + and the install tree +. +The build tree is what we've been talking about up until +this point. This is where the source code lives and all the +compiling takes place. Once the executables are built, they need +to be installed someplace. We shall call this install location +the install tree. This is where the executables, the +scenery, the textures, and any other run-time files will be +located. + +

    + +

  12. Configure + the make system for your environment and your +install tree. Tell the configure script where you would like to install the +binaries + and all the scenery + and textures + by using the +--prefix option. In the following example the base of the install +tree is FlightGear. Make sure you are within FlightGear 's build tree +root directory. + +

    + +

  13. Run: + + +

    + ./configure --prefix=/mnt/FlightGear. + +

    + Side note: The make procedure is designed to link against opengl32.dll, glu32.dll, and +glut32.dll which most accelerated boards require. If this does not apply to yours or if +you installed SGI's software rendering + as mentioned in Subsection 2.5 +you may have to change these to opengl.dll, glu.dll, and glut.dll. (In case you're in +doubt check your \windows\system directory what you've +got.) + +

    + If this is the case for your video card +, you can edit + .../Simulator/Main/ Makefile and rename these three libraries to + their "non-32" counterparts. There is only one place in this + Makefile where these files are listed. + +

    + +

  14. Build the executable. Run: + +

    + make. + +

    +Assuming you have installed the updated version of install.exe (see earlier +instructions) you can now create and populate the install tree. Run: + +

    + make install. + +

    + You can save a significant amount of space by stripping all the + debugging symbols off of the executable. To do this, change to the + directory in the install tree where your binary lives and run: + +

    + strip fgfs.exe resp. strip fgfs-sgi.exe. + +

    +

+Chapter 4
Preflight: Installing FlightGear +

+ +

+

+4.1  Installing the Binaries on a Windows system

+ +You can skip this Section and go to the installation of scenery in case you built +FlightGear along the lines describes during the previous Chapter. If you did not and +you're jumping in here your first step consists in installing the binaries. At present, +there are only pre-compiled binaries + available for Windows 98/NT + while in +principle it might be possible to create (statically linked) binaries for Linux + +as well. + +

+The following supposes you are on a Windows 98 or Windows NT + system. +Installing the binaries is quite simple. Go to + +

+ ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Win32/ + +

+ get the latest binaries from that subdirectory named + +

+fgfs-win32-bin-X.XX.exe + +

+ and unpack them via double clicking. This will create a directory FlightGear +with several subdirectories. You are done. + +

+

+4.2  Installing Support files +

+ +

+Independent on your operating system and independent on if you built the binaries +yourself or installed the precompiled ones as described above you will need +scenery +, texture +, sound +, and some more support files. A basic +package of all these is contained in the binaries directory mentioned above as + +

+ fgfs-base-X.XX. + +

+ Preferably, you may want to download the .tar.gz version +if you are working under Linux +/UNIX + and the .exe version if you +are under Windows 98/NT +. Make sure you get the most recent version. + +

+If you're working under Linux + or UNIX +, unpack the +previously downloaded file with + +

+ tar xvfz fgfs-base-X.XX.tar.gz + +

+ while under Windows 98/NT + just double click on the file (being situated in the +root of your FlightGear drive.). + +

+This already completes installing FlightGear and should you enable to invoke the +program. + +

+Some more scenery which, however, is not a substitute for the +package mentioned above but rather is based on it can be found in +the scenery subdirectory under + +

+ http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/ + +

+ These may be older versions which may or may not work with the +most recent binaries. + +

+In addition, there is a complete set of USA Scenery files + +available created by Curt Olson + which can be +downloaded from + +

+ftp://ftp.kingmont.com/pub/kingmont/ + +

+ The complete set covers several 100's of MBytes. Thus, Curt +provides the complete set on CD-ROM for those who really would +like to fly over all of the USA. For more detail, check the +remarks in the downloads page above. + +

+Finally, the binaries directory mentioned contains the complete FlightGear documentation +as + +

+fgfs-manual-X.XX.exe. + +

+It includes a .pdf version of this Installation and Getting Started guide +intended for pretty printing using Adobe's Acrobat reader being available from + +

+http://www.adobe.com/acrobat + +

+Moreover, if properly installed the .html version can be accessed via FlightGear 's +help menu entry. + +

+

+Chapter 5
Takeoff: How to start the program +

+ +

+

+5.1  Starting under Linux

+Under Linux, FlightGear is invoked by + +

+ fgfs --option1 --option2..., + +

+ where the options are described in Section 5.3 below. + +

+

+5.2  Starting under Windows 98/NT +

+ +

+In Windows explorer, change to the \FlightGear\ directory. +Call runfgfs.bat by double-clicking if you want to invoke the hardware +accelerated version of FlightGear fgfs.exe, or runfgfs-sgi.bat if you +installed SGI's software OpenGL + support. + +

+Alternatively, if for one or the other reason the batch does not work, you can open an +MS-DOS shell, change to the directory where your binary resides (typically something like +d:\FlightGear\bin where you might have to substitute +d: in favor of your FlightGear directory), set the environment variable with + +

+SET FG_ROOT=d:\FlightGear\bin + +

+ and invoke FlightGear (within the same shell - Windows environment + settings are only valid locally within the same shell) via + +

+fgfs --option1 --option2.... + +

+For getting maximum performance it is highly recommended to +minimize (iconize) the non-graphics window while running +FlightGear . +


+

+ +



Fig. 2: Ready for takeoff. We are at the default startup +position in Arizona. +


+

+

+5.3  Command line parameters +

+ + + +

+Following is a list and short description of the command line options available. In case +of Windows 98/NT it is recommended to include these in runfgfs.bat. + +

+

+5.3.1  General Options

+ +

+ +

+5.3.2  Features

+ +

+ +

+5.3.3  Flight model +

+ +

+ +

+5.3.4  Initial Position and Orientation +

+ +

+ +

+5.3.5  Rendering Options +

+ +

+ +

+5.3.6  Scenery Options Options +

+ +

+ +

+5.3.7  HUD Options +

+ +

+ +

+5.3.8  Time options +

+ +

+ +

+Chapter 6
Flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus +

+This is a description of the main systems for controlling the program and piloting the +plane: Historically, keyboard controls were developed first, and you can still control +most of the simulator via the keyboard alone. Recently, they are becoming supplemented by +several menu entries, making the interface more accessible, particularly for beginners, +and providing additional functionality. A joysticks provides a more realistic alternative +for actual piloting of the plane. Concerning instruments, there are again two +alternatives: You can use the rather advanced HUD or the emerging panel. + +

+

+6.1  Keyboard commands

+ +

+While joystick +s or yoke +s are supported as are rudder pedals, you can fly +FlightGear using the keyboard alone. For proper controlling via keyboard (i) the +NumLock + key must be switched on (ii) the FlightGear window must have +focus (if not, click with the mouse on the graphics window). Some of the keyboard +controls might be helpful even in case you use a joystick. + +

+After activating NumLock the following keyboard commands + should work: +

+ +

+ Tab. 1: Main keyboard commands + for FlightGear . +


+

+ +

+
+
Key Action +
Pg Up/Pg Dn Throttle +
Left Arrow/Right Arrow Aileron +
Up Arrow/Down Arrow Elevator +
Ins/Enter Rudder +
5 Center aileron/elevator/rudder +
Home/End Elevator trim
+ +

+

+ + +For changing views you have to de-activate NumLock. Now +Shift + < Numeric Keypad Key > changes the +view as follows: + +

+ Tab. 2: View directions + +accessible after de-activating NumLock. +


+

+ +

+
+
Numeric Key View direction +
Shift-8 forward +
Shift-7 left/forward +
Shift-4 left +
Shift-1 left/back +
Shift-2 back +
Shift-3 right/back +
Shift-6 right +
Shift-9 right/forward
+ +

+

+ + +The autopilot + is controlled via the following controls: +


+

+ Tab. 3: Autopilot controls. + +


+

+ +

+
+
Key Action +
Ctrl + A Altitude hold toggle on/off +
Ctrl + H Heading hold toggle on/off +
Ctrl + S Autothrottle toggle on/off +
Ctrl + T Terrain follow toggle on/off +
F11 Set target altitude +
F12 Set target heading
+ +

+

+


The last one is especially interesting as it makes your Navion + behave like a +cruise missile. + +

+Besides these basic keys there are some more special ones; most of these you'll probably +not want to try during your first flight:

+ + +

+ Tab. 4: More control commands. +


+

+ +

+
+
Key Action +
H/h Change color of HUD/toggle HUD off forward/backward +
i/I Minimize/maximize HUD +
m/M Change time offset (warp) used by t/T forward/backward +
P Toggles panel on/off +
t/T Time speed up/slow down forward/backward +
x/X Zoom in/out +
z/Z Change visibility (fog) forward/backward +
b Toggle brakes on/off +
p Toggle pause on/off +
W Toggle fullscreen mode on/off (Mesa/3dfx/Glide only) +
F2Refresh Scenery tile cache +
F8 Toggle fog on/off +
F9 Toggle texturing on/off +
F10 Toggle menu on/off +
F11 Sets heading in autopilot +
F12 Sets altitude in autopilot +
ESC Exit program
+ +

+

+

+6.2  Menu entries +

+ +

+Albeit the menu being not yet fully operational it provides several useful functions. At +present, the following ones are implemented. + +

+ +

+6.3  The head up display +

+ +

+At current, you have two options for reading off the main flight parameters of the plane: +The HUD + (Head Up Display + and +the panel. Neither are HUD +s used in usual general aviation planes nor in civilian +ones. Rather they belong to the equipment of modern military jets. However, in view of +the fact that the panel + despite recent progress is not yet complete the +HUD + may well serve as a main instrument for controlling the plane. Besides, it +might be easier to fly using this one than exploiting the panel + and several of +the real pilots might prefer it because of combining the readouts of critical parameters +with an outside view onto the real world. (Several Cessna + pilots might love to +have one, but technology is simply too expensive for implementing HUDs in general +aviation aircrafts.) +


+

+ +



Fig. 3: The HUD, or head up display. +


+

+The HUD + shown in Fig. 3 displays all main flight parameters of the plane. In +the center you find the pitch indicator + (in degrees) with the aileron +indicator + above and the rudder indicator + below. A corresponding scale for the +elevation + can be found to the left of the pitch scale. On the +bottom there is a simple turn indicator +. + +

+There are two scales at the extreme left: The inner one displays the speed + (in +kts) while the outer one indicates position of the throttle +. You may recall the +Navion + taking off at a speed of 100 kts. The two scales on the extreme r.h.s +display your height +, i. e. the left one shows the height above ground while the +right of it gives that above zero, both being displayed in feet. + +

+Besides this, the HUD + displays some additions information. On the upper right you +find date and time. Below, you see latitude + and longitude + of your current +position on the l.h.s and r.h.s, resp. In the lower left corner there is a number +indicating the frame rate +, i.e. the number of times the picture being re-drawn +each second. + +

+You can change color of the HUD using the ''H'' key. Pressing it several times +minimizes the HUD. + +

+

+6.4  The Panel +

+ +

+Besides the HUD +, FlightGear has a panel + which can be activated by +pressing the ''P'' key. (It is recommended disabling the HUD then by pressing ''H'' +several times.) While the panel is not yet fully complete the basic five flight +instruments + to scan are present and working. +


+

+ +



Fig. 4: The panel. +


+

+In the center you find the artificial horizon + (attitude indicator) displaying +pitch and bank of your plane. It has pitch marks (hard to be seen in this version) as +well as bank marks at 10, 20, 30, 60, and 90 degrees. + +

+Left to the artificial horizon, you'll see the airspeed indicator +. Not only does +it have a speed indication in knots (recall: The Navion takes off at 100 kts) but also +several arcs showing characteristic velocity rages + you have to consider. At +first, there is a green arc indicating the normal operating range of speed with the flaps +(net yet being implemented in FlightGear ) fully retracted. The white arc indicates the +range of speed with flaps in action. The tiny yellow arc shows a range, which should only +be used in smooth air. The upper end of it has a red radial indicating the speed never to +be exceeded. + +

+Below the airspeed indicator you can find the turn indicator +. The airplane in the +middle indicates the roll of your plane. If the left or right wing of the plane is +aligned with one of the marks this indicates a standard turn, in which you make a full +360 degrees turn in exactly two minutes. + +

+Below the plane, still in the turn indicator, is another instrument, called +inclinometer +. It indicates if rudder + and ailerons + are +coordinated. During turns, you always have to operate aileron and rudder in such a way +that the ball in the tube remains centered; otherwise the plane is skidding. + +

+To the right of the artificial horizon you find the altimeter + showing the height +above sea level (not ground!). At present it is not yet working in +FlightGear . Below the altimeter is the vertical speed indicator + +which, on the other hand, is operational. It indicates the rate of climbing or sinking of +your plane in hundreds of feet per minute. + +

+There is one more instrument working in the panel, i.e. the second one in the column on +the r.h.s. indicating position of throttle +. + +

+This completes description of the present main FlightGear instruments. If you are +looking for some interesting places to discover with FlightGear (which may or may not +require downloading additional scenery) you may want to check + +

+ http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/Places. + +

+There is now a menu entry for entering directly the airport code + of the airport +you want to start from. + +

+Finally, if you're done and are about to leave the plane, just hit the ESC key or use the +corresponding menu entry to exit the program. + +

+

+Chapter 7
Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane +

+ +

+

+7.1  Those, who did the work

+ +

+Did you enjoy the flight? In case you did, don't forget those who devoted hundreds of +hours to that project. All of this work is done on a voluntary basis within spare time, +thus bare with the programmers + in case something does not work the way you want +it to. Instead, sit down and write them a kind (!) letter proposing what to change. +Alternatively, you can subscribe to the FlightGear mailing lists + and contribute +your thoughts there. Instructions to do so can be found under + +

+ http://www.flightgear.org/mail.html. + +

+Essentially there are two lists, one of which being mainly for the developers and the +other one for end users. +


+

+ These are the people who did the job (This information was +essentially taken from the file Thanks accompanying the +code): +


+

+ Raul Alonzo + (amil@las.es)
Author of Ssystem and +moon texture. +


+

+ Michele America + +(nomimarketing@mail.telepac.pt)
+ Contributed to the HUD + code. +


+

+ Steve Baker + (sjbaker@hti.com)
+ Author of PLIB +, a graphics/audio/joystick interface written entirely on top of + OpenGL +/GLUT + used in FlightGear . An immense amount of coaching and tutelage, + both on the subjects of flight simulation and OpenGL +. It has been + his comments and thoughts that have prompted the implementation of + most of the more sophisticated features of FlightGear . +


+

+ Michael Basler + (pmb@knUUt.de)
+ Coauthor of Installation and Getting Started (together with Bernhard + Buckel). +


+

+ John S. Berndt + (jsb@hal-pc.org)
+ Working on a complete C++rewrite/reimplimentation of the core FDM. + Initially he is using X15 data to test his code, but once things are + all in place we should be able to simulator arbitrary aircraft. +


+

+ Paul Bleisch + (pbleisch@acm.org)
+ Redid the debug system so that it would be much more + flexible, so it could be easily disabled for production system, and + so that messages for certain subsystems could be selectively + enabled. + +

+ Also contributed a first stab at a config file/command line parsing + system. +


+

+ Jim Brennan + (jjb@foothill.net)
+ Provided a big chunk of online space to store USA scenery for Flight Gear. +


+

+ Bernie Bright + (bbright@c031.aone.net.au)
+ Many C++ style, usage, and implementation improvements, STL + portability and much, much more. +


+

+ Bernhard H. Buckel + +(buckel@wmad95.mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de)
+ Contributed the README.Linux. Coauthor of Installation + and Getting Started (together with Michael Basler). +


+

+ Gene Buckle + (geneb@nwlink.com)
+ A lot of work getting FlightGear to compile with the MSVC +++ + compiler. Numerous hints on detailed improvements. +


+

+ Oliver Delise + (delise@rp-plus.de)
+ FAQ Maintainer. +


+

+ Didier Chauveau + (chauveau@math.univ-mlv.fr)
+ Provided some initial code to parse the 30 arcsec DEM files found at: + +

+ http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/gtopo30/gtopo30.html. +


+

+ Jean-Francois Doue +
+ Vector 2D, 3D, 4D and Matrix 3D and 4D inlined C++ classes. (Based on + Graphics Gems IV ed. Paul S. Heckbert) + +

+http://www.animats.com/simpleppp/ftp/public_html/topics/developers.html. +


+

+ Francine Evans + (evans@cs.sunysb.edu) + +

+http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~evans/stripe.html + +

+ Wrote the GPL'd tri-striper. +


+

+ Oscar Everitt + (bigoc@premier.net)
+ Created single engine piston engine sounds as part of an F4U package + for FS98 +. They are pretty cool and Oscar was happy to contribute + them to our little project. +


+

+ Jean-loup Gailly + and Mark Adler + +(zlib@quest.jpl.nasa.gov)
+ Authors of the zlib library +. Used for on-the-fly compression and + decompression routines, + +

+ http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/. +


+

+ Thomas Gellekum + (tg@ihf.rwth-aachen.de)
+ Changes and updates for compiling on FreeBSD +. +


+

+ Jeff Goeke-Smith + (jgoeke@voyager.net)
+ Contributed our first autopilot + (Heading Hold). + Better autoconf check for external timezone/daylight variables. +


+

+ Michael I. Gold + (gold@puck.asd.sgi.com)
+ Patiently answered questions on OpenGL +. +


+

+ Charlie Hotchkiss + +(chotchkiss@namg.us.anritsu.com)
Worked on improving and enhancing the +HUD + code. Lots of code style tips and code tweaks... +


+

+ Bruce Jackson + (NASA) (e.b.jackson@larc.nasa.gov) + +

+ http://agcbwww.larc.nasa.gov/People/ebj.html + +

+ Developed the LaRCsim + code under funding by NASA which we use to provide the + flight model. Bruce has patiently answered many, many questions. +


+

+ Tom Knienieder + (knienieder@ms.netwing.at)
+ Ported Steve Bakers's audio library + to Win32. +


+

+ Reto Koradi + (kor@mol.biol.ethz.ch) + +

+http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/~kor + +

+ Helped with setting up fog effects +. +


+

+ Bob Kuehne + (rpk@sgi.com)
+ Redid the Makefile system so it is simpler and more robust. +


+

+ Vasily Lewis + (vlewis@woodsoup.org) + +

+ http://www.woodsoup.org + +

+ Provided computing resources and services so that the Flight Gear + project could have real home. This includes web services, ftp + services, shell accounts, email lists, dns services, etc. +


+

+ Christian Mayer + (Vader@t-online.de)
+ Working on multi-lingual conversion tools for fgfs.
+ Contributed code to read msfs scenery textures. +


+

+ Eric Mitchell + (mitchell@mars.ark.com)
+ Contributed some topnotch scenery textures +. +


+

+ Anders Morken + (amrken@online.no)
+ Maintains the European mirror of the FlightGear web pages. +


+

+ Alan Murta + (amurta@cs.man.ac.uk) + +

+ http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/alan/software/ + +

+ Created the Generic Polygon Clipping library. +


+

+ Curt Olson + (curt@flightgear.org)
+ Primary organization of the project. First implementation + and modifications based on LaRCsim +. Besides putting together all + the pieces provided by others mainly concentrating on the scenery + engine + as well as the graphics stuff. +


+

+ Robin Peel + (robinp@mindspring.com)
+ Maintains worldwide airport and runway database for FlightGear as we as X-Plane. +


+

+ Friedemann Reinhard + +(mpt218@faupt212.physik.uni-erlangen.de)
+ Development of textured instrument panel +. +


+

+ Petter Reinholdtsen + (pere@games.no)
+ Incorporated the Gnu automake/autoconf system (with libtool). + This should streamline and standardize the build process for all + UNIX-like platforms. It should have little effect on IDE type + environments since they don't use the UNIX make system. +


+

+ William Riley + (riley@technologist.com)
+ Contributed code to add ''brakes''. +


+

+ Paul Schlyter + (pausch@saaf.se)
+ Provided Durk Talsma with all the information he needed to write the astro code. +


+

+ Chris Schoeneman + (crs@millpond.engr.sgi.com)
+ Contributed ideas on audio support. +


+

+ Jonathan R Shewchuk + +(Jonathan_R_Shewchuk@ux4.sp.cs.cmu.edu)
+ Author of the Triangle + program. Triangle + is used to calculate the Delauney triangulation of our irregular terrain. +


+

+ Gordan Sikic + (gsikic@public.srce.hr)
+ Contributed a Cherokee flight model + for LaRCsim +. Currently is not + working and needs to be debugged. Use configure + --with-flight-model=cherokee + to build the cherokee instead of the Navion +. +


+

+ Michael Smith + (msmith99@flash.net)
+ Contributed cockpit graphics, 3d models, logos, and other images. + Project Bonanza + +

+ http://members.xoom.com/ConceptSim/index.html. +


+

+ U. S. Geological Survey + + +

+http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html + +

+ Provided geographic data used by this project. +


+

+ Durk Talsma + (pn_talsma@macmail.psy.uva.nl)
+ Accurate Sun, Moon, and Planets. Sun changes color based on + position in sky. Moon has correct phase and blends well into the + sky. Planets are correctly positioned and have proper magnitude. help with time + functions, GUI, and other things. +


+

+ Gary R. Van Sickle + +(tiberius@braemarinc.com)
+ Contributed some initial GameGLUT + support and other fixes. +


+

+ Norman Vine + (nhv@laserplot.com)
+ Many performance optimizations throughout the code. Many contributions + and much advice for the scenery generation section. Lots of Windows + related contributions. Improved HUD +. +


+

+ Roland Voegtli + (webmaster@sanw.unibe.ch)
+ Contributed great photorealistic textures. +


+

+ Carmelo Volpe + (carmelo.volpe@csb.ki.se)
+ Porting FlightGear to the Metro Works + development environment + (PC/Mac). +


+

+ Darrell Walisser + (dwaliss1@purdue.edu)
+ Contributed a large number of changes to porting FlightGear to the Metro Works + development environment (PC/Mac). Finally produced the first MacIntosh port. +


+

+ Robert Allan Zeh + (raz@cmg.FCNBD.COM)
+ Helped tremendously in figuring out the Cygnus + Win32 compiler and + how to link with .dll's. Without him the first run-able Win32 + version of FlightGear would have been impossible. + +

+

+7.2  What remains to be done

+At first: If you read (and, maybe, followed) this guide until this +point you may probably agree that FlightGear , even +in its present state, is not at all for the birds. It is already a +flight simulator which has a flight model, a plane, terrain +scenery, texturing and simple controls. + +

+Despite, FlightGear needs - and gets - further development. Except internal tweakings, +there are several fields where FlightGear needs basics improvement and development. + +

+A first direction is adding airports +, streets, and more things bringing Scenery +to real life. + +

+Second, the panel + needs further improvement including more working gauges. + +

+Besides, there should be support for adding more planes + and for implementing +corresponding flight models differing from the Navion +. + +

+Another task is further implementation of the menu system +, which should not be +too hard with the basics being working now. + +

+A main stream of active development concerns weather. At present there is simply none: no +clouds, no rain, no wind. But there sure will be. + +

+There are already people working in all of these directions. If you're a programmer and +think you can contribute, you are invited to do so. + +

+ +

Achnowledgements

+Obviously this document could not have been written without all +those contributors mentioned above making FlightGear a reality. + +

+Beyond this we would like to say special thanks to Curt +Olson, + whose numerous scattered Readmes, +Thanks, Webpages, and personal eMails were of special help to us +and were freely exploited in the making of this booklet. + +

+Next, we gained a lot of help and support from Steve Baker + and +Norman Vine +. Moreover, we would like to thank Steve +Baker + for a careful reading and for numerous hints on the first draft +of this guide. + +

+Further, we would like to thank Kai Troester + for donating the +solution of some of his compile problems to Chapter 8. + +

+

+Chapter 8
Missed approach: If anything refuses to work +

+We tried to sort problems + according to operating system to a certain extent , but +if you encounter a problem it may be a wise idea to look beyond ''your'' operating system +- just in case. Besides, if anything fails, it is definitely a good idea to check +the FAQ maintained by Oliver Delise (delise@rp-plus.de) being distributed +along with the source code. + +

+

+8.1  General problems

+ +

+8.2  Potential problems under Linux

+ +

+Since we don't have access to all possible flavors of Linux distributions, here are some +thoughts on possible causes of problems. (This Section includes contributions by Kai +Troester Kai.Troester@rz.tu-ilmenau.de.) + +

+ +

+8.3  Potential problems under Windows 98/NT

+ +

+ +

+ + +

Index (showing section)

+ +
FlightGear Flight School, + 1-4 +
FlightGear Programmer's Guide, + 3-0 +
FlightGear Scenery Design Guide, + 1-4 +
FlightGear Website, 1-2 +
FlightGear documentation, + 1-4 +
FlightGear home page, 1-4 +
3DFX, 2-1, 2-4 +
3DFX board, 8-2 +
3DFX chip, 2-4 +
3DXF, 2-4 + +

+

Adler, Mark, 7-1 +
ailerons, 6-4 +
airport code, 5-3, + 6-4 +
airport id, 6-2 +
airports, 7-2 +
airspeed indicator, 6-4 +
Alonzo, Raul, 7-1 +
altimeter, 6-4 +
America, Michele, 1-2, + 7-1 +
artificial horizon, 6-4 +
astronomy code, 1-2 +
audio library, 7-1 +
audio support, 1-2 +
autopilot, 1-2, 6-1, + 7-1 +
autopilot controls, 6-1 + +

+

Baker, Steve, 1-2, + 7-1, + 7-2 +
Basler, Michael, 7-1 +
Berndt, John, S., 7-1 +
binaries, 3-1, 3-2, + 4-1 +
     installation, 4-1 +
binaries, pre-compiled, 3-0 +
Bleisch, Paul, 7-1 +
Brennan, Jim, 7-1 +
Bright, Bernie, 7-1 +
BSD UNIX, 1-1 +
Buckel, Bernhard H., 7-1 +
Buckle, Gene, 7-1 +
build tree, 3-2 + +

+

Cessna, 6-3 +
Chauveau, Didier, 7-1 +
Cherokee flight model, 7-1 +
cockpit, 5-3 +
command line options, 5-3 +
compiler, 1-3 +
compiling, 3-0 +
     Linux, 3-1 +
     Windows 98/NT, 3-2 +
Configure, 3-2 +
configure, 3-1, 3-2 +
Creative Graphics Blaster, + 2-3 +
Cygnus, 1-3, 3-2, + 7-1, 8-3 +
Cygnus Win32 port of GNU C, + 3-2 + +

+

Delise, Oliver, 7-1 +
Diamond Stealth II, 2-2 +
Diamond Viper 550, 2-3 +
documentation, 1-1 +
DOS, 1-2 +
Doue, Jean-Francois, 7-1 + +

+

elevation indicator, 6-3 +
environment variable, 2-1 +
Evans, Francine, 7-1 +
Everitt, Oscar, 7-1 + +

+

field of view, 5-3 +
flight model, 5-3 +
Flight simulator +
     civilian, 1-1 +
     free, 1-2 +
     multi-platform, + 1-1 +
     open, 1-1 +
     user-extensible, + 1-1 +
     user-sported, 1-1 +
     user-supported, + 1-1 +
Flight Unlimited II, 1-1 +
fog, 5-3 +
fog effects, 7-1 +
frame rate, 1-2, + 1-3, 6-3 +
FreeBSD, 7-1 +
FS98, 1-1, 7-1 +
fullscreen display, 5-3 + +

+

Gailly, Jean-loup, 7-1 +
GameGLUT, 7-1 +
Gellekum, Thomas, 7-1 +
Getting Started Guide, 6-2 +
GLIDE, 2-1 +
Glide, 8-2 +
GLUT, 2-1, 7-1 +
Glut header files, 3-2 +
glut libraries, 3-2 +
GNU C++, 1-3 +
Gnu Public License, 1-1 +
Goeke-Smith, Jeff, 1-2, + 7-1 +
Gold, Michael, I., 7-1 +
graphics drivers, 2-0 +
graphics library, 2-0 +
graphics routines, 1-2 + +

+

haze, 5-3 +
head up display, 1-2, + 6-3 +
height, 6-3 +
history, 1-2 +
Hotchkiss, Charlie, 1-2, + 7-1 +
HUD, 1-2, 5-3, 6-3, + 6-4, 7-1, + 8-1 + +

+

inclinometer, 6-4 +
initial heading, 5-3 +
initial pitch angle, 5-3 +
initial roll angle, 5-3 +
install tree, 3-2 +
instrument panel, 5-3 + +

+

Jackson, Bruce, 1-2, + 7-1 +
joystick, 1-3, 6-1 + +

+

keyboard commands, 6-1 +
Knienieder, Tom, 7-1 +
Koradi, Reto, 7-1 +
Korpela, Eric, 1-2 +
Kuehne, Bob, 7-1 + +

+

LaRCsim, 1-2, 7-1 +
latitude, 6-3 +
Lewis, Vasily, 7-1 +
Linux, 1-1, 1-2, + 1-3, 2-1, + 3-0, 3-1, + 4-1, 4-2 +
longitude, 6-3 +
Looking Glass, 1-1 +
loop-through-cable, 2-1 + +

+

mailing lists, 7-1 +
Mayer, Christian, 7-1 +
menu, 1-2 +
Menu entries, 6-2 +
menu system, 7-2 +
MESA, 2-1 +
Metro Works, 7-1 +
Microsoft, 1-1 +
military components, 1-1 +
mini-OpenGL, 2-2, + 8-3 +
Mitchell, Eric, 1-2, + 7-1 +
Morken, Anders, 7-1 +
MS DevStudio, 8-3 +
MS Visual C, 3-2 +
MSVC, 1-3, 7-1, + 8-3 +
Murr, David, 1-2 +
Murta, Alan, 7-1 + +

+

Navion, 1-2, 6-1, + 6-3, 7-1, + 7-2 +
NumLock, 6-1 + +

+

Olson, Curt, 1-2, + 4-2, 7-1, + 7-2 +
OpenGL, 1-2, 1-3, + 1-4, 2-0, + 2-2, 2-5, + 3-0, 5-2, + 7-1, 8-1 +
     drivers, 1-3 +
     software rendering, + 2-5 +
Operating Systems, 1-1 +
orientation, 5-3 +
OS/2, 1-2 + +

+

panel, 1-2, 6-2, + 6-3, 6-4, + 7-1, 7-2 +
panel code, 1-2 +
Peel, Robin, 7-1 +
permissions, 8-2 +
pitch indicator, 6-3 +
planes, 7-2 +
PLIB, 1-2, 3-2, + 7-1 +
problems, 8-0 +
programmers, 7-1 +
proposal, 1-2 + +

+

Reinhard, Friedemann, 1-2, + 7-1 +
Reinholdtsen, Petter, 7-1 +
rendering options, 5-3 +
Rendition 2100 chipset, 2-2 +
Rendition chipset, 2-2 +
Riley, William, 7-1 +
RIVA TNT chipset, 2-3 +
rudder, 6-4 +
rudder indicator, 6-3 + +

+

scenery, 1-2, 3-2, + 4-2 +
scenery creation tools, 8-3 +
scenery options, 5-3 +
Schlyter, Paul, 7-1 +
Schoenemann, Chris, 7-1 +
SGI IRIX, 1-1 +
Shewchuk, Jonathan, 7-1 +
Sikic, Gordan, 7-1 +
Smith, Michael, 7-1 +
software rendering, 3-2 +
sound, 4-2 +
sound card, 1-3 +
sound effects, 1-3 +
source code, 1-1 +
speed, 6-3 +
Sun-OS, 1-2 +
SunOS, 1-1 +
Support files, 4-2 +
system requirements, 1-3 + +

+

Talsma, Durk, 1-2, + 7-1 +
terrain, 5-3 +
texture, 4-2 +
textures, 1-2, 3-2, + 7-1 +
throttle, 6-3, 6-4 +
time options, 5-3 +
Torvalds, Linus, 1-1 +
triangle program, 7-1 +
Troester, Kai, 7-2 +
turn indicator, 6-3, + 6-4 + +

+

U. S. Geological Survey, + 1-2, + 7-1 +
UNIX, 1-2, 1-3, + 3-0, 4-2 +
USA Scenery files, 4-2 + +

+

van Sickle, Gary R., 7-1 +
velocity rages, 6-4 +
vertical speed indicator, + 6-4 +
video card, 2-0, + 3-2 +
view directions, 6-1 +
view frustrum culling, 1-2 +
Vine, Norman, 1-2, + 7-1, + 7-2 +
Voegtli, Roland, 7-1 +
Volpe, Carmelo, 7-1 +
Voodoo, 2-1 + +

+

Walisser, Darrell, 7-1 +
win32 api library, 3-2 +
Win32 libraries, 3-2 +
Windows, 1-3 +
Windows 95/NT, 1-2 +
Windows 98, 1-3 +
Windows 98(95), 1-1 +
Windows 98/NT, 1-3, + 2-2, + 2-3, + 2-4, + 2-5, + 3-0, + 3-2, + 4-1, + 4-2, + 5-2 +
Windows drivers, 2-2 +
Windows NT, 1-1, + 1-3 +
workstation, 1-2, + 1-3 + +

+

yoke, 1-3, 6-1 + +

+

Zeh, Allan, 7-1 +
zlib library, 7-1 + +

+

 +

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