FSX software

[tvatroy]

Hi,

I am new on this site and I can't find my way around jet, so I hope a thread like this isn't already posted.

I am a student (software engineering) and I would like to communicate between FSX and my hardware.

When in FSX the gear of a boeing 737 goes up, I would like to turn on a light. The last part of this project is not difficult, so my question is: How do I get data from FSX to see if the gear goes up.

I hope someone can tell me, or show me a thread with a tutorial or something.

(I am sorry for my bad English)

Roy van Marrewijk (the Netherlands)

[AchillesP]

Hi,

You can start from the bellow forum.

http://forums.simflight.com/viewforum.php?f=54

Hi,

I am new on this site and I can't find my way around jet, so I hope a thread like this isn't already posted.

I am a student (software engineering) and I would like to communicate between FSX and my hardware.

When in FSX the gear of a boeing 737 goes up, I would like to turn on a light. The last part of this project is not difficult, so my question is: How do I get data from FSX to see if the gear goes up.

I hope someone can tell me, or show me a thread with a tutorial or something.

(I am sorry for my bad English)

Roy van Marrewijk (the Netherlands)

[MartinK]

Hi Roy,

First of all, welcome to the community.

The subject you are raising in your post is an almost constant discussion on this forum. Just click on forum (in the blue bar right underneath the mycockpit logo on the top left of the homepage) and browse down until you see the subject of I/O Interfacing and hardware. There you will find lots of good information.

In order to give you a quick but brief heads-up: interfacing between hardware and FSX needs a few additional bits & pieces but also has it's limitations or challenges.

First and foremost you will need a piece of add-on software called FSUIPC.
(just google it and once found get a license) This excellent software add-on sits 'inside' FS as a DLL and will im- and export certain values based on events happening (like e.g. your example of the gear).

Next you will need add'l hardware which interfaces to your FS PC and takes the value from FSUIPC and converts that into a signal that you can use to e.g. drive indicator lights. Same story but in the reverse way for buttons you push or turn and input that action back to FSX.

Now here is where the main issue will come. In general, some but certainly not all external event information can be imported into FS(X) again using FSUIPC. There are however some really clever ways around this problem being developed; just browse the wealth of information you will find on this site.

Finally, the results you can achieve will also very much depend on what type aircraft you will be flying: standard FSX plains or add-ons from third parties.
Like e.g. the 737 and 747 from PMDG will not allow you to access their interals at all, that is not directly (there is an alternative available to mimic mouse clicks). The Level-D 767 add-on however has a full blown SDK and our countrymen Nico Kaan has devoted a very informative website about this (http://www.lekseecon.nl/).

So, bottom-line: you have just made a choice for a fantastic hobby which is going to challenge you to a large extend. Also, the best way to start is browse and read, browse and read, browse and read and just when you think you are done do some more browse and read........

Again, on this site you will find an enormous wealth of information but just in case you get stuck DO NOT hesitate and post your question. There is always somebody in our community that will answer you.

Kind regards,

Martin

[twisted8]

take a look at the FSUIPC SDK, you can probably code that together with your hardware, they have sample scripts in different programming languages. They even have .net component now.

[tvatroy]

Thanks for all the help, just what i needed!