Gauges!! Looking for Graphically inclined helpers....

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:04 pm

MegaTunix is approaching a 0.9.0 release with a working dashboard functionality, and I'm looking for a few volunteers to design a couple themed sets based on some real world gauges.

I have one set of Autometer sportComp style ones that were graciously designed by TurboCamaro, but am looking for more sets as well. This is a community, lets see a few people step up to the challenge..

Today MegaTunix 0.8.9 is released with a fully functional gauge designer and a completed dashboard designer. The last remaing piece is hte megatunix core code to link the dashboards into the datasources in a running instance of megatunix (sounds fancy but it shouldn't be too difficult)

I am looking for a few good men/women to sit down with the new gaugedesigner tool and make some themed sets of gauges for other common ones out there in the real world. Do your best to make them look as realistic as possible. And for those artists, some completely independant unique designed sets would also be cool. You get to be famous forever as your name gets added to the source as a co-author for your contributions. zip them up and attach them to this thread and I'll add them into the next release, as well as place the sets up on sourceforge for users to get and share.

karlo · Post by **karlo** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:09 am

In order to emulate the BMW gauges properly, I need more configurability for the needle (I need a straight needle). A picture of the E28 revcounter is at http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imagese ... y21325.jpg. The current needle doesn't turn out quite right, as you'll see in the attached gauges. What do you think?

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:31 am

karlo wrote:In order to emulate the BMW gauges properly, I need more configurability for the needle (I need a straight needle). A picture of the E28 revcounter is at http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/imagese ... y21325.jpg. The current needle doesn't turn out quite right, as you'll see in the attached gauges. What do you think?

It looks very well done. Though if you want to be closer to the beemer gauge you can change the start/stop angles (it uses radians in a funky way) to get it to match up closer. The needle isn't bad though.

I am trying to think of ways to make the needles more flexible and may have a solution soon, which shouldn't break any pre-existing gauges.

karlo · Post by **karlo** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 10:55 am

Oops, you're right. I've updated the attachment with the correct start/stop angles.

czb83 · Post by **czb83** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:38 am

I messed around modeling some Autometer Cobaly style gauges, whadda ya think?

71jeep · Post by **71jeep** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 5:49 pm

Here is some Autometer ultalite Por-comp gauges I have been working on what do you think.
I worked on them a bit more here is the latest

cchristopher · Post by **cchristopher** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:58 pm

71jeep wrote:Here is some Autometer ultalite Por-comp gauges I have been working on what do you think.
I worked on them a bit more here is the latest

Very Nice!

I like them alot. Boost would be a nice addition ;)

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:49 pm

71jeep wrote:Here is some Autometer ultalite Por-comp gauges I have been working on what do you think.
I worked on them a bit more here is the latest

Sweet!!
very cool. I commend you on being so creative. you also pointed out several shortcomings that I need to address regarding the gauges.

1. I need to decouple the tick text from the ticks somewhat so they don't share the border offset thus to allow text on the outside of the ticks.

2. My tick algortighms need to be a little more flexible.

3. My gauge designer is a POS as it sits and needs improvement (load/close functions)

4.My dash designer needs to be able to load the gauges in sets, as I can forsee the number of contributed gauges getting to be rather large..

Some of these changes may cause minor issues as I get them implemented... apologies in advance...

71jeep · Post by **71jeep** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:55 pm

Dave ..

I noticed something to when I was making these gauges after you insert so many text the posistioning functions in the text editor stop working you have to insert each itext exactly as you want it or start over because there is no way to get it to move also you can not edit the entry at all you must get right on the first try.
I hope I explained it well enough

Yeh the load close was a pain in the rear but no big.
But all in al I had fun gave me something to do on a rainy day

Thanks for a great program.
Now I just need to figure out what I doing wrong to get them allto work right.

I can make a boost guage check back in a few days I will see what else I can cook up

71jeep

Allen....

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:00 pm

71jeep wrote:Dave ..

I noticed something to when I was making these gauges after you insert so many text the posistioning functions in the text editor stop working you have to insert each itext exactly as you want it or start over because there is no way to get it to move also you can not edit the entry at all you must get right on the first try.
I hope I explained it well enough
Yeh the load close was a pain in the rear but no big.
But all in al I had fun gave me something to do on a rainy day
Thanks for a great program.
Now I just need to figure out what I doing wrong to get them allto work right.

I can make a boost guage check back in a few days I will see what else I can cook up

71jeep
Allen....

I fired up your dash and noticed that several of the gauges had incorrect limit's set. which will explain why they aren't displaying anything (pr showing bogus values)

I'll see what I can do about improving these apps for the 0.9.4 release which has significant fixes in already.

71jeep · Post by **71jeep** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:06 pm

Hmmm let me check to see what I did wrong which ones were off ??
All of them but the AFR ,PWM1,and duty cycle were giving correct values I thought.
Maybe I am not giving them correct limits because I am not sure of the correct limits??
Should they follow my gauge or the limits in megatunix sorry if this seems like a dumb question but I think I missing something.

71jeep

Allen....

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:13 pm

71jeep wrote:Hmmm let me check to see what I did wrong which ones were off ??
All of them but the AFR ,PWM1,and duty cycle were giving correct values I thought.
Maybe I am not giving them correct limits because I am not sure of the correct limits??
Should they follow my gauge or the limits in megatunix sorry if this seems like a dumb question but I think I missing something.

71jeep

Allen....

The limits are easier than you think and they are arbritary..
IF you have a gauge that reads 0-100 (let say TPS percentage), and your on screen scales read 0-100, set the limits to 0 and 100 respectively

for an AFR gauge , lets say 10-20:1. set the limits to 10 and 20. If the incoming value from MTX is below or above that range the gauge will clamp at it's max or min respectively.

Looking at your AFR gauge, the on screen sweep is 10-20, but the limits are set 0-150, so the gauge won't read right...

The mat gauge is also off... The limits are set 0-240, but the gauge can ONLY read 100-250, so the limits should be set 100-250.

then it'll read right..

cchristopher · Post by **cchristopher** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:13 pm

71jeep wrote:Dave ..

I can make a boost guage check back in a few days I will see what else I can cook up

71jeep
Allen....

Cool Thanks Allen!

71jeep · Post by **71jeep** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:17 pm

Oops I must have missed those so I am setting my upper and lower rights with the exceptio of those mentioned sorry about the I will fix them repost the file.

sorry
71jeep

Allen..

czb83 · Post by **czb83** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:38 pm

Finished by Cobalt gauges and Dashboard. Don't have my stim or MS to test it, but i think they should all be correct. Not sure if clamped gauges to right values though.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:50 pm

czb83 wrote:Finished by Cobalt gauges and Dashboard. Don't have my stim or MS to test it, but i think they should all be correct. Not sure if clamped gauges to right values though.

I checked and they all looked OK, added to main code and committed to CVS.

dash required minor editing for missing vars and incorrect paths..

NOTE to future gauge designers. Gauge sets should be installed into their OWN subdir under the Mtx Gauges dir. i.e. C:\program files\megatunix\.MegaTunix\Gauges\YOUR_SUB_DIR\YOUR.GAUGES.xml

and for unix/linux folks:
Personal gauges can go into ~/.MegaTunix/Gauges/YOUR_SUB_DIR/YOUR_GAUGES.xml

MegaTunix installed system wide ones go under /usr/local/share/MegaTunix/Gauges. So, personal ones should stay in your homedir. If you have duplicate filenames the loaders wil prefer the ones in ~/.MegaTunix over the system wide ones.

robstah · Post by **robstah** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:38 am

David, is there anyway to add a window around the gauges? Don't get me wrong, I love how they work, but not having a background for the gauges kinda makes them look bad with my desktop background and programs running behind it. Is there anyway of creating a window and setting the background to a certain color, then work from there? Maybe even have a full screen version of it. Just an idea.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:43 am

robstah wrote:David, is there anyway to add a window around the gauges? Don't get me wrong, I love how they work, but not having a background for the gauges kinda makes them look bad with my desktop background and programs running behind it. Is there anyway of creating a window and setting the background to a certain color, then work from there? Maybe even have a full screen version of it. Just an idea.

It's not possible in the current design. The main problem with that is that it takes a lot of screen real-estate (with a border window). I'd suggest if you use windoze to install a pager to give you virtual desktops and change the background on one of the others and run mtx and it's gauges on the other virtual desktop. (Linux has had "Virtual desktops" for 10 years+ on X11)