Valkyrie Simulation Project / News: Recent posts

I have finally gotten vsim to work with a newer version of OSG since version 1.0 causes problems under Windows. I'll update to 2.8.2 make sure everything still works, then clean up the code and send it up to SVN.

The latest version is being tested on Visual Studio 2005, so hopefully more people can help me get this project back up and running again.
-Jason

Visual Studio solutions have been uploaded to the SubVersion tree. CMake should still work for now, but to get things moving easier, I am switching to Visual Studio.

I have finally switched over to SVN and have tested basic access.

Please report and problems as we switch from CVS to SVN.

The latest files on CVS have been switched from Automake/Autoconf to CMake! This should make builds easier to accomplish outside of *nix environments.

05/20/2006 - Jason
Version 0.1.2 changes include:
- Nz (G loading) is now displayed on the VF-1 HUD.
- Mass Balance adjustments so that the VF-1 stays more neutrally balanced as the wings
sweep aft. This allows the VF-1 to operate at lower throttle settings.
- A bug was fixed in the rate limit code in the filters. The surface actuators for all
aircraft will now be correctly limited to the specified maximum rate.

Version 0.1.1 is out, main improvements are:
- Thrust vectoring angles now appear on the HUD
- ESC now exits the program correctly and does not leave the program hanging, i.e. hard to quit.
- VF-1 now much more controlable.

Release candidate one is up on CVS. No new files will be coming in unless something is broken, so let's try to keep everything to bug fixes until we get this out. I have no plans to add any new classes in the near future. If you have problems, let me know, I'm really good at fixing all compiler errors/warnings.

Release candidate one is up on CVS. No new files will be coming in unless something is broken, so let's try to keep everything to bug fixes until we get this out. I have no plans to add any new classes in the near future. If you have problems, let me know, I'm really good at fixing all compiler errors/warnings.

The CVS code has been updated to use Open Scene Graph to drive the Out The Window view (http://www.openscenegraph.org).

Other *nix specific code has been removed and replaced with system independent code and the program has been compiled under windows with MinGW/MSYS (http://www.mingw.org)!

A version compiled with Visual Studio is also near completion.

Soo. look for a new release coming soon! And hopefully binaries as well.

For anyone who's curious, I am still working on the project, but because of a busy winter. I haven't had a chance to even look at code in probably 2 months. But yes, it is still alive and kicking =).

If anyone is interested in helping out with this project, please e-mail me at MaxJenius@users.sourceforge.net and tell me what you can do and how you want to help. We need help with:

C++ programming
graphics
windows port (?)
Aerodynamics/Control Systems guys: come on, I know there are more of your out there ;)

New files are up on the main CVS tree! Here is the jist of the changes (see the ChangeLog for more specific details).

DataRecording reworked. See the README for more details on how to use this feature.

F-14A aero package update. I have tweaked the numbers on the F-14A aerodynamics package to make a little more sense. I have contradicting sources on the value and sign of Cmalpha. I am going with a negative value since it is probably correct, and is more stable.... read more

The latest changes for the F14-A/VF-1 Aerodynamics update are up and available on CVS.

Version 0.0.5 was labeled vsim-0_0_5. From now on I plan to label all releases in a similar manner.

The following are the changes:
- Added try/catch to F16Aero and F14AAero for memory allocation.
- Fixed an error in calculating Beta in the equations of motion
it was using tan() instead of sin().
- Adding pitching moment and drag effects due to rudders in F-14A
Aerodynamics model.
- Reworked F-14A aerodynamics. The aero got a major overhall.
- Added test code for the F-14A aerodynamics (see models/F14A/Tests).
- Found a bug in the equations of motion where if the center of mass
was not colocated with the reference c.m. the forces and moments
would get incorrectly translated. Moving the CM should now
show up correctly in the resulting dynamics.
- Renamed center of gravity to center of mass. It's a nit, but
technically center of mass is correct (CM != CG).
- Added speed brake model to VF1 aircraft.

Version 0.0.5 is up.

This version mainly fixes some problems people were having with newer versions of plib not working. It also includes significant changes to the VF-1 model.

This was going to be a 0.1.0 release, but the VF-1 aerodynamics are still far from being done. The aero will got through a major revision before the next release and hopefully the aircraft will behave better as a result.

Please submit any bugs you find for us to track.... read more

Version 0.0.4 is up. See the ChangeLog for a list of changes.

Basically, it adds the F-14A model.

Fixed bugs that prevented 0.0.2 from working on some systems. We're still not sure why it worked for some and not others...go figure. All should be happy and good again!

Been a while since new news was posted. I'm still working on that F-14 model. It's just down to looking through a ton of numbers at this point. I'd say it will still take me several weeks to get this done.

I believe Jase (foonix) is working on an issue with no OpenGL graphics on some systems. So far two Redhat 7.3 systems (with different graphics cards) show the problem. If you have any clues, we'd appeciate the help!... read more

After some much needed restructuring of the framework, version 0.0.2 is finally available for download. Please submit any bugs that may be found.

Out first release is out! Let us know if you find any bugs.

Joystick is supported if you have plib (plib.sourceforge.net) installed. Otherwise, it will fly a prescribed stick input.

The joystick calibration routine was updated so that the calibration data is saved in a file ,joystick.data, how original =). If you mess up the calibration, remove this file and rerun.

I THINK I have fixed a problem with the F16 aerodynamics that was causing may aircraft variables to hit not a number (nan) after pulling a hard pitch followed by a hard roll.

As a side note, if you ever get a case where the simulation starts displaying nans, e-mail me the data.m file when the run is finished, do NOT kill the program, let it finish so the file can be written. This file contains a lot of data I can use to figure out what happened.

We are currently targetting a June time frame for a simple working version of our game with an F-16 model. A VF-1 model will come next after we have ironed out details from the first version.

I have updated the F16 aerodynamics routine again. It is almost complete now, and I anticipate being done with it in the next two weeks. I have also added rate and output limits to the filter series of classes. This means that we may have a flying aircraft in a few weeks (note: flyable, NOT controllable). The F16 model I have created thus far has no control system, so it will probably be difficult to fly until I have time to work on a simple one.... read more

News from Jase:

There's a visual version of the physics test program in cvs now.

We're going to release a tarball version once we clean things up a bit, so for now you'll have to get it from the cvs. Here's the instructions:

(Check out the latest stuff from the cvs with something like "cvs up ." or folow the instructions on the sourceforge cvs page with . as the module name)
make
cd vsge
make vtest
./vtest 50000

Alright, I have upload a bunch of changes to the dynamics directory, including (but not limited to because I'm probably forgetting something):
- more comments!
- Fixes for some incorrect rotations I was doing (bugs)
- Added center of gravity to Vehicle
- Collisions can now impart angular velocities on other vehicles!
- The collision code has been further tested, and now imparts a force to change the velocity rather than changing the velocity immediately.... read more

Collision detection has been improved significantly, along with a smear of other changes. Expect to see some integration between the graphics and dyanmics soon!

Alright, I finally got several hours to sit down and upload some files to the repository. I do not currenly know why the browser reports and error reading some files, I will be submitting a bug report in a second. All the files are there and readable from cvs, but the root directory files are unreadable from the browser. However, the dynamics subdirectory is perfectly readable.

Max (Jason)

I'm done updating the web page for now. There is no new information on the page, mostly just optimizations and removal of frames. As usual, if you spot any problems, send me a not.

Jason