stuart wrote in Tue Jan 08, 2019 5:53 pm:Unfortunately, the GUI version under the Debug menu is broken in 2018.2. It's fixed in next.
Note that it is pretty straightforward to extend the Canvas/C++ code in simgear to add a dedicated element for loading 3d models from disk and display those. I needed that functionality a while ago, so that I ended up adapting an existing osg demo/example, in conjunction with an OSG tutorial showing to use a so called "PositionAttitudeTransformMatrix".
While that may sound like a mouthful, it's actually only ~50 lines of C++ code (again, all copy/paste from the OSG samples), mapping the methods of the PAT to use the PropertyBased/SGPropertyChangeListener needed by any sc::element sub-class.
That way, you end up with a new Canvas element, say "model" that takes a file name and accepts a handful of parameters to transform/place it accordingly.
In other words, you can load any number of 3D models from the base package into a Canvas texture and transform them via properties:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Sandbox#CanvasModel
Which is to say, we could reuse existing 3D models to come up with procedural UI dialogs for instruments like the FG1000 at the mere cost of adding a dedicated "model-view" element, to show an ortographic view of the instrument, which would mean that it would even be possible to use the same animations/hot-spots (think mouse/keyboard bindings).
This kind of feature would also make it possible to load a 3D sphere and animate/transform it as needed, e.g. for the PFD of the SpaceShip One, without requiring fancy Nasal code or shader support (ADI/Nav Ball):
