New Arrival from UK!

Hi to all the members out there.
I am a complete novice on simulation systems but I have ideas to build my own, which led me to finding my way to the fountain of knowledge that springs from the amazing members sharing their knowledge on this site.

I am an ex-engineer with 20 years in combat aircraft test, systems development and a stint in aircrew simulator work.
I did start a thread already, Thread: Collimated Mirror Design Calculations, in the Collimated Display Discussions forum.
Unfortunately I tried to edit this and add pictures which led to the text being completely erased and me being unable to change that; I have reported this to admin, hopefully will get told of a fix soon.

This post related to my first attempts at designing the mirror-screen system; I followed the basic principles found here i.e. start at the view point and send parallel rays to the mirror and onward to define the screen.

Through reading some very useful threads here I think I have found an error in my approach; I also took note of the fact that the problem is very much a 3 dimensional one i.e. my solutions worked only for viewing only in the two on-axis planes i.e. vertical and horizontal. With this in mind I have started working on a PC tool that will do this in 3 dimensions; as soon as I make progress I will post a thread here.

There is an excellent tool called Lightwave by Newtek, used to create CGI effects in movies. You can get a copy of this affordably; I got mine on eBay for about $40USD!! That was one heck of a steal, I had been after it for years after watching it go for hundreds of dollars on eBay; I got incredibly lucky, threw my hat in the ring and nobody else bid!!!

Lightwave contains a ray tracing function that will allow realistic modelling of the visual system and the image seen at the viewpoint. I will do this when I learn how to 'switch it on' and use it.

Another useful tool is Matlab; you could get a Home licence for about $100USD at one point. There is so much can be done with this tool and I plan to dip into this as well and share my experiences with it.

No doubt I will need your help (again) in the future and hopefully what I am doing may be of interest to some of you.

JS