ZKV1000 in Diamond DA42, in flight from LFLG to LFBD, running STEC55X autopilot HDG roll mode. other pictures available here

Thanks

Thanks to www2 the modeller of the GDU104X project "Farmin/G1000" I can continue the work began many years ago with a nicer (and working) 3D model instrument. Thanks to him/her for the SVG basis file too.
Thanks to Hooray's nice efforts, and some examples ans snipsets of code here and there from the Canvas team.
Thanks to all FlightGear community for the funny project I let too many years off side... Especially to authors of Avidyne Entegra 9 on extra500, from which the map is largely inspired (and many lines of code copied and adapted): Dirk Dittmann and Eric van den Berg

Origin

The first ZKV1000, which was completly XML animated, was completly abandonned. Moreover the Nasal code became unmaintanable from my point of view. Not sure this one is better, but I think it is at least more modulable.

The origin is to simulate a Garmin Primus 1000, as near as possible of the documentation found.

But as we are in a simulation, the zkv1000 is definitly not a replica of the well-known G1000, as it takes the liberty to be integrated with some features that doesn't exit in the real device, as well as some real features aren't scheduled to be implemented. But, it should be easy to add or remove features in order to get the real device. This is GPL-2 license though :)

Objectives

There is no intention to provide a fully qualified G1000 in order to train or so, but this should be possible to be done from the zkv1000.

I'm particulary looking at these points:

easy to implement new features
optimized code (from my non-dev point of view...)
easy to integrate in every cockpit with only few lines, and with easy use for the pilot
near from the G1000 documentation but with some neat features added, and some unrelevant features in a sim removed

Progress

Note: this is not because the progress bar show 100% that it means it is 100% bug free :) Please report bug at zkv1000@seb.lautre.net.

- Basic Flight Instrumentation: AI, IAS, ALT, HDG
- Wind data widget
- trends for altitude and speed (6s prevision)
- TAS and Ground Speed display
- VSI
- 3D knobs rotate
- map display on inflight page (with online maps downloading and caching)
- display of NavAids on map
- XPDR from SoftKeys and knob, with respect of delays from the manual
- Selected altitude bug (widget off if IA within 100ft)
- baro settings
- SoftKeys menus navigation for PFD and MFD: not yet implemented function are logged in console , softkeys colorized when active , alerts with white backgroud and black text available
- CDI
- OMI
- Slipskid animation
- Radio stack, including ID for NAV
- windows management: selectable items, modifiable items, scrolling
- display of V-speeds in ruler: Vx, Vy, Vr and Vglide (specific for aircraft, see installation instruction)
- some aircraft specific data to retrieve from aircraft XML files (VNE, etc)
- possibility to add a copilot's PFD, and other displays
- EIS: separation for aircraft specifics (selected by the zkv1000 config)
- Inset Map (PFD)
- single-prop EIS: texts displayed, animations for fuel
- ND and map display: synchronized tiles and navaids, range change, map heads up
- rotation and zooming of online maps in-flight
- Traffic alert and display on map
- screen brightness and body lighting settings
- checklists management (emergency and normal)
- possibility to fit the size of the devices to enter the panel
- auto power on if set
- AFCS capabilities
- integration of GFC700 from the official Stuart Buchanan's FG1000
- TMR/REF Timer , Vspeeds , minimums (don't understand the role of this)
- route displayed on map: legs , current and next leg , OBS , TOC/TOD
- angle of attack display (not sure about calculation): specific for each airplane (see Installation instructions below)
- Bearing needs some checks to be sure it shows the correct information
- XPDR: emergency code depending of the country (eg.: 1200 for US, 7700 for Europe), should be set in settings
- use of maketimer() instead of settimer() when possible
- Setting pages (MFD): pages/sub-pages selection via FMS knob , pages content implementation
- Flight plans catalog (display on map doesn't work each time...)
- NOT TESTED: add the posssibility to only use Nasal part of the instrument. This in case of a cockpit which already includes needed objects and animations for screens, knobs and buttons in its config files
- Map settings: declutter , range/zoom
- integration of Octal450's S-TEC 55X autopilot system
- EIS: animations for temperature for YaSim and JSBSim with provided default single-prop EIS
- make the switch back on working for MFD display and radios
- multikey for every part of the device (actually only power on)
- power off
- Aircraft Maintainer's Guide
(TODO list, unsorted)
- make possible to integrate other autopilot systems than the one integrated
- make booting animation visible
- make possible to include in the aircraft directory (instead of Instruments-3d)
- separation of code for buttons and knobs scenarii and computing
- CDI/GPS: scale depending of the flight phase
- Alerts
- TOPO map
- Weather map
- Flight planning (MFD)
- PFD settings
- replace the use of clip by a better system in map display (think also about INSET)
- VS guidance
- VNAV
- scrolling lift in menus
- tutorials
- User's Guide
- make any Vspeed available (not only Vx, Vy, Vr and Vglide), depending of their presence in aircraft config
- touchable screen (other interesting link)
- many more...

Installation

Just git clone https://seb.lautre.net/git/seb/zkv1000.git in your favorite Instrumentation-3d dir or directly in your aircraft files structure.
Please note that the Instruments-3d dir is recommended as the zkv1000 wants to integrate the official $FGDATA/Aircraft/Instruments-3d some days
Then somewhere in the XML configuration of your aircraft, put only few lines as described below

Create the `zkv1000` Nasal namespace

In the <nasal> place of your aircraft configuration, tell FlightGear where to find the zkv1000.nas file

    <zkv1000>
        <file>Aircraft/Instruments-3d/zkv1000/zkv1000.nas</file>
    </zkv1000>

    <zkv1000>
        <file>Aircraft/My-Nice-Aircraft/arbitrary/dirs/zkv1000-or-not/zkv1000.nas</file>
    </zkv1000>

Actually zkv1000.nas is where everything begins, please have a look at this code, it would help you to follow the script.

Set specific values for your aircraft

Specifics values for aircraft can be set via the aircraft configuration, in the <instrumentation> section, just add a section <zkv1000> and set here the needed values.

Adjust size to the panel of your aircraft

To increase or decrease the size of all the devices (PFDs and MFDs) you can use a factor property, eg. in the DA42:

    <size-factor type="double">1.19</size-factor>

Defaults to 1 if you don't provide this information. Values lower than 1 decreaase size, and higher than 1 increase the size.

Make your instrument auto powered on

Let say you want your PFD and MFD switched on as soon as the electrical system allows it. Set your device with the following

    <auto-power type="bool">1</auto-power>

Then you need to set the property /instrumentation/zkv1000/serviceable by the mean you want, as soon as it property is true the zkv1000 will automagically switch on.

Vspeeds

To see the Vspeeds bugs or the IAS background color change (Vne), set the corresponding V-speeds in knots by adding in your <instrumentation><zkv1000> section the following lines (here are the numbers for the Lancair-235, values are not to be used in real life). If not set, defaults to 999 knots

    <alerts>
      <Vx>99</Vx>
      <Vy>110</Vy>
      <Vr>65</Vr>
      <Vglide>80</Vglide>
      <Vne>170</Vne>
    </alerts>

EIS

This parameter tells the zkv1000 which kind of engines equips your aircraft, and the associated EIS.
The Nasal script should include at least three things:

a method called displayClass.showEIS in which you initialize the EIS, especially by selecting the shown, hide, clipped and texts elements
a method called displayClass.updateEIS which is used to update the EIS display, it includes its own timer to refresh itself
a SVG object with ID EIS (generally the background of the EIS display).
It should appears in the lists in displayClass.showEIS.
This object is used to compute the map width, so it is important to set it on the left of the screen

There are three ways too put an EIS in MFD:

use one of the included simple EIS provided with the zkv1000

    <eis>
      <type>single-prop</type>
    </eis>

Defaults to none, available entries are the .nas files located in Nasal/EIS/ directory.

or use the one you specially have created for your aircraft

    <eis>
      <file>Aircraft/My-Nice-Aircraft/Nasal/EIS.nas</file>
    </eis>

or the one from another aircraft. Anyway if the EIS nasal file targeted doesn't exist, the fallback is the type none.

or you can give the absolute path ( not supported)

    </eis>
      <file>/home/foobar/fgfs-data/Nasal/testing-jet-jsbsim-EIS.nas</file>
    </eis>

Be aware that canvas.parsesvg uses only relative path and should not work properly if your .nas is outside of the FG tree.
If you want to add your own EIS, just copy the Models/EIS/single-prop.svg, modify it to fit your needs, and refer to it in a function named displayClass.showEIS, another very important function is displayClass.updateEIS (example in Nasal/EIS/single-prop.nas)
You are even free to modify the softkeys map in order to get according menus, but this has to be described on another document (check Nasal/softkeys.nas).

No matter of the EIS width, as the map size and center are computed relative to the EIS width automatically.

Notes:

you can use <file> or <type> indifferently, they are actually identical.
later on the MFD Engine pages will be managed by the file specified in this section

Angle Of Attack (AOA)

You can specify the stall AoA in order to display it in the dedicated display.

    <alerts>
      <stall-aoa>15</stall-aoa>
      <approach-aoa>4</approach-aoa>
    </alerts>

Values are in degrees.
If <stall-aoa> is not specified or equals to 0 (zero) the AOA display won't be accessible.
The <approach-aoa> is optionnal, if present a blue marker is visible on AOA display (not in real GarminP1000)

Flight plans catalog

You can specify a directory where to find the flightplans you save. Defaults to $FG_HOME/Export

    <flightplans type="string">/absolute/path/to/your/flightplans/location</flightplans>

Only the flightplans set for a departure from your position will be shown, no matter of the name of the file (even extension), each will be parsed to find the ones corresponding to your departure location. The list will show only 6 flightplans, but it's scrollable so you can handle much more.

3D models

In the definition of your flightdeck (here are the values for the installation in the Lancair 235 in which I develop the device) put it everywhere you want to. Note that the path Aircraft/Instruments-3d/zkv1000 is dependant on the path where the zkv1000 is installed, this can be somewhere like Aircraft/My-Nice-Aircraft/arbitrary/dirs/zkv1000-or-notas mentionned earlier in this section.

    <model>
        <path>Aircraft/Instruments-3d/zkv1000/pfd-pilot.xml</path>
        <offsets>
            <x-m> -0.023 </x-m>
            <y-m> -0.235 </y-m>
            <z-m> -0.028 </z-m>
        </offsets>
    </model>
    <model>
        <path>Aircraft/Instruments-3d/zkv1000/mfd.xml</path>
        <offsets>
            <x-m>  0.03  </x-m>
            <y-m>  0.06  </y-m>
            <z-m> -0.028 </z-m>
            <heading-deg> -15 </heading-deg>
        </offsets>
    </model>

You can put as many devices as wanted, but generally they are two (PFD+MFD) or three (2 PFD+ 1 PFD), can be only one which is useful when you just want the PFD or the MFD in your cockpit. The device are identified by a name, which should be unique unless they won't be independant. This name is set by one of the property in the XML model file (instrumentation/zkv1000/<NAME>/status), which is a property telling if the device is switched off or not (or in reversionnary mode, later). Actually there are only two "types of display": MFD or PFD, which is known by the first 3 letters of the name (case sensitive!) Other devices as keyboard or non-display can also exists, as long as they don't have a status property... Not sur I'm clear on this point though :)

Autopilot

There are two systems supported: the GFC700 shipped with the official Stuart Buchanan's FG1000 and the Octal450's STEC 55X (and at time of writing only HDG and buggy NAV/GPS modes are available).

GFC700

To make the magic operate, you just need to insert these lines into the sim/systems section. Be aware that this autopilot has been tuned for the Cessna 182, so may not be correct for light jets.

    <autopilot>
      <path>Aircraft/Instruments-3d/FG1000/GFC700.xml</path>
    </autopilot>

S-TEC 55X

To make it available you have to follow the installation rules of the device on its own page. The zkv1000 will find it by its own and make it available.

This STEC55X autopilot system would remain shipped in the zkv1000 as it is described in the documentation of Cirrus Perspective SR2x, but the zkv1000 will in near future let you create your own and make its choice depending of the availibilities or property set.

Map tiles origin

By defaults the maps tiles come from https://maps.wikimedia.org, type osm-intl (please read https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maps), but you can choose your favorite one if you've got one. I've tested opentopomap.org and thunderforest.com (my favourite). You can tell the zkv1000 the tile server, type and eventually apikey by using --prop: option while starting FlightGear session:

In case of apikey (or whatever added at the en of the URL):

    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-server=tile.thunderforest.com
    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-type=landscape
    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-apikey=?apikey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

or if there is no type, just use type /:

    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-server=a.tile.opentopomap.org
    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-type=/

The only used protocol is https but you can provide your own template with option

    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-template=http://{server}/{type}/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpeg

An option is also available to tell the format of the tile image which can be used in template with the {format} anchor

    --prop:/sim/online-tiles-format=jpeg

Switch it up

Autopower on/off

You can set an electrical system to make the property /instrumentation/zkv1000/serviceable reflect the alimentation of the ZKV1000 (boolean or volts > 12). Then configure the zkv1000 to auto power on as soon as it is known as serviceable withe the following

    <instrumentation>
      <zkv1000>
        <auto-power type="bool">1</auto-power>
      <zkv1000>
    </instrumentation>

Note that will also switch off the zkv1000 if it becomes non-serviceable.

The re-switching on is buggy (the MFD doesn't re-display the contents and the NAV/COMM utils aren't available anymore... working on it)

Manually

If you haven't set a electrical system to make the property /instrumentation/zkv1000/serviceable to reflect the availibity of the ZKV1000, and you haven't set the auto-power, then you can use the multikey (souvenirs, thanks to Melchior having that much expended this feature years ago :)) service by typing: :zo

The :z will be the multikey entry for all multikeys of the zkv1000.

If you see a single red dot under the ZKV100O xxx init message (xxx = MFD or PFD), this is likely the sim is paused (press p by default to stop the pause).
If you see multiple dots under the ZKV1000 xxx init message, something wrong happened, time to check console
If you see only black screen on one of the screen, something really wrong happened, time to check console

Known issues

Please send issues to zkv1000@seb.lautre.net
issues are listed here

Documentation

Documentation is being actively written. There are two differents guides:

Here is a list of useful links:

Canvas in FG
Nasal
the guides used to create the scenario from Garmin website
- G1000 Pilot’s Guide for the Diamond DA42 (v0370.22) (94 pages)
- Pilot's Guide, Cirrus Perspective, SR2x (v0764.30) (752 pages)

FG1000

There is an implementation of the Primus Garmin 1000 by Stuart Buchanan which is much more respectful of the Canvas principles, using new technology Emesary, with far better coding style, and with the intent to stay close as possible with the Garmin 1000 real device.
The device is avaiblable in FGData repo and has a specific wiki page.