WideView panoramic view.

One of important things for proper cockpit “flying illusion” is outside view. For the effect to work your outside view should be panoramic, preferably covering entire field of vision, 180° or even 225°. This can be achieved by using multiple projectors, larger monitors or flat Screen TVs. Everything depends on the price and performance of your PC or the price again! Unfortunately with multiplying simulator outside views performance will drop significantly, regardless of whether you use multiple graphics cards or TripleHead2Go!

One of solutions for expanding picture to multiple monitors is WideView software. This program can make multiple outside views using networked PCs. All PCs need a running copy of FS, flying server will send data to clients which will follow exactly the aircraft on the server. This way you get multiple panoramic view from multiple networked PCs and you get more processing power to cope with panoramic view. There is no limit on how many PCs you link together. View angles and zoom factors can be easily customized, to get perfectly matching images between the monitors.

I started testing 5 monitor view (45° per monitor) on three PCs. At the beginning I had some problems with the synchronization of pictures, client picture was lagging behind the server picture but after going through some parameters in settings I got them right.

I really like the the principle behind this WideView software and I think this is the way to go. Combined panoramic picture flows nicely ( 20 – 25 FPS) and it is a real pleasure looking sideways at takeoff or in turns.