Flightsim in 20 years

[pilottj]

Hey folks
Snuffy's great technology post got me thinking about our hobby. Looking at where it has been and the rate at things develop. All the benchmarks in development we have seen from MS, Lionheart, Lotus, Realair, A2A, Aerosoft...etc have kept this hobby going and keeps us all excited about what is to come. Now for ducks, lets look ahead 20-30 years and see where we will have and what technology trends might be around then. Somthing like Accusim is a great benchmark for flightsim realisim today, in 20 years what will be the benchmark, or what would be some good technology goals by then?

Also as the internet becomes a bigger part of flightsimming, will we see FS evolve into a Secondlife/WOW type atmosphere in that we all have our own 'hangars'/accounts of our aircraft, and maybe our own 'meshes' for scenery and such, but it would be all on line and we would all fly from a central world/worlds. Maybe there could be several types of 'worlds' different time periods, ala a 1940s world for the warbird nuts, and a 1960s world for fans of early jet airliners, and a modern world, and maybe a 'future' world. Maybe you the user would be a pilot in this 3d world and could fly to an airport, get out of your plane, go to the FBO, check the weather, go to the FBO's hangar and get in another airplane. So many possiblities.

What are your thoughts on the development and future of our hobby. What types of benchmarks would you like to see set and met? A question for the developers too, where would you like to see the hobby go and goals set for designing ability? Anyway have fun with this.

Cheers
TJ

[Piglet]

It will take as much time to build a sim model, as it does a real plane...
Maybe 3-D scenery created on the fly (pun intended) based on some kind of stereolithography-ish pics or real scenery. Did I make any sense?

[Willy]

Heck, I've got my doubts that it will even be PC based in 20 years.

[Lionheart]

It will take as much time to build a sim model, as it does a real plane...
Maybe 3-D scenery created on the fly (pun intended) based on some kind of stereolithography-ish pics or real scenery. Did I make any sense?

In watching that movie 'Iron Man', where he had design tools that could speed up his prototyping design area, (check the keyboard out on his Max design system), I think that with better tools, we could do far far more.


On flight simulator, the newest thing (at Costco stores) is 3D large screen TV's. Now people are linking large screen TV's to their computers. (I am one of them, 42" LCD HD TV linked to my iMac). With 3D, you will be able to see backgrounds with high realism. Also screens are now featuring more colors, instead of just Red Blue Green. Yellow I think is one of them. Bigger screens are far more cheaper now, and more compact on the desk. Not like the old giant tube screens, like a 27" that weight like 60 pounds.


I was hoping that some screens with projectors would come out that used a curved piece of white plexi in front of your desk, about 36" high, about 50" or more wider, maybe 60", with a projector beaming from each side (total of two). With that technology, just FSX or FS9 would run great and really enhance the flight sim experience.



On the sim itself, I thin environment is the next thing. ORBX shows you how grass can look in a field, how the world can be enhanced or created in a sim. Planes for a long while have been really up to date. Now its time for the world to catch up. Buildings you can walk into, super realism from texture baking so you dont need to go to locations to photograph them, etc.


I think the game world and the sim world and the hardware are getting really close to all synchronizing.




I was watching 'Ghost in the Shell' last night. They can all link their minds via software implants and share/download/upload scenes, memories, etc, to other team members. Imagine putting on a head band, no screens, links into a future version of iPod or iPad, and you set up your flight, and lean back in a chair and your mind controls all the flight controls like yoke and engine throttle, and your inner minds eye sees 'everything' and you go for a flight like a vivid dream, like a totally lucid dream in which you think you were really there... Now that would be 'Syd Mead' cool... lol


Bill