G'day,
First up thanks for the blimp info guys.
Now first up the "what do you think" tech question....
Do you think the computer generated displays in the helmets of the future (are
they called huds or something??) will be customisable colour wise? So
maybe you could have "standard", "colour-blind" (various kinds), "grey"
etc settings or you could have a limited number of settings so it suits you.
Or
do you think it would be stock standard, no-give so you could just grab
anyone's helmet if need be?
I was thinking more for fiction rather than rule reasons, maybe a guy has
figured out he can detect cammo'ed guys a bit better on setting x, rather than
usual army setting and that's why he seems to have the edge etc.
OK scratch building question....
What kind of overhead (as in overhead projector transparent sheets) do you
think would take paint the best? The ones that are printer compatible maybe?
Thanks
I would go for the ones that are inkjet compatible. They are a little rougher,
so should hold the paint better. However, be sure to take a miniature with you
and hold the edge of a sheet up to it to see if it is transparent enough to
suit your needs.
-----
Brian Bell
-----
[quoted original message omitted]
Beth,
All of our stuff is standard across each platform. There are no user
modifications.
If there are any in the helmet HUD they would be standard modifications. So
you might have "Low Light", "Jungle1". "Jungle2" etc.
It would take a very enlightened military to allow the individual to choose
what works best for them. *Heavy but true sarcasm here*
Magic
> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
G'day,
> I would go for the ones that are inkjet compatible.
Thanks
> However, be sure to take a miniature with you and hold the
Even the hint of transparency is enough as they're going to be the "face" of
an energy shield.
Cheers
G'day,
> All of our stuff is standard across each platform.
I was actually inspired to the question by one of Lachy's comments when we
found out he's red-green colour blind this week. We got into discussing
what restrictions that has re: future careers and he responded that with
modern tech why should it matter couldn't they change the settings like we do
when he plays some games on my work pc.
However, given the problems of supply and "general issue" I do take your
point!
Thanks
Beth.Fulton@csiro.au schrieb:
> G'day,
HUD = Head-up-Display
The term comes from aircraft cockpit displays. Normally, aircraft have
instruments on a dashboard and pilots have to look down to check them.
HUDs are semi-transparent mirrors placed on the windscreen. Data is
projected onto them. This allows the pilot to check data values while keeping
his head up.
There is no technical problem in varying the colour of displays that do have
colour capability. The only limit is the willingness of the programmers to
allow changes.
> So maybe you could have "standard", "colour-blind" (various kinds),
Quite possibly a set of standard settings which can be fine-tuned to
suit indivduals. Compare the display settings in, for example, Windows.
> Or do you think it would be stock standard, no-give so you
Unless somebody has very weird eyesight, most setting should be usable for
other people. They may just not be the best for the one picking up the helmet.
And there should be a "reset" option somewhere.
Greetings
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2002 at 09:40:29PM +1000, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
Also keeping the things useful - the sergeant needs to be able to say
"this new information is being displayed in red" and know that the troops know
what he means.
It's like the Russian tank units; never mind how good you are, if you're over
5'8" (?) you can't join. With a sufficiently large population, this doesn't
impair quality all that much... and lets you put on a bit more armour where
you would have put headroom.
> On 18-Apr-02 at 07:16, Robert Makowsky (rmakowsky@yahoo.com) wrote:
> It would take a very enlightened military to allow the
Do you know how many stupid, worthless, inaffective settings your users would
pick if allowed to chose their view? It would work great right up until the
bozo on watch with the strobe setting got everyone killed. I'd much rather
have everyone at 100% than 5 guys at 103% and one guy at 30%.
> On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:40:29 +1000, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> I was actually inspired to the question by one of Lachy's comments when
As with the others, I'd say that they would have a single setting or group of
settings, and the user could pick one of them. Of course this is the future,
so they would probably beam the information straight onto the retina by way of
a set of goggles (that way you can still have the information if you chose to
flip up a face shield, or whatever).
Red/green colour blindness is common enough, though, that it should be
taken into account. Of course I say this while today we still see computer
programs that ignore the issue. I was fortunate enough to sit beside someone
who was
red-green colour blind when I worked at Kodak. I let him test out some
screens I'd designed. It was interesting to hear his comments.
What you might want, for your story, is to take another tack. Instead of the
character having an advantage due to a different setting on his equipment, you
may want him to have an advantage due to a physical difference. A natural
advantage, if you would. (A more interesting story might come about if he
actually had a disadvantage, like red-green colour blindness, and had to
develop other advantages to compensate.)
Quoting Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net>:
> On 18-Apr-02 at 07:16, Robert Makowsky (rmakowsky@yahoo.com) wrote:
I once worked on this project which involved some client PCs that tracked
information about the status of patients in theatres. Occaisionally people,
who presumably were bored with such trivial tasks as "keeping their patient
breathing" or "making sure we take out as many retractors as we put in" would
fiddle with the settings. Ending up with getting them into states where they
couldn't see the coloured indicators for minor things like "patient has blood
clotting condition" and hence a call to support to go "fix" it.
Bear in mind, these are workstations in a sterile environment - one has
to scrub up to get at them to use them... this was the point at which user
configurability started to look like a BAD idea.
Quoting Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net>:
> Red/green colour blindness is common enough, though, that it should be
It varies in intensity - a lot of people can't tell whether something is
red or green unless they've actually got something red to compare it to, some
people are just not 100% sure about their decision but are usually right.
I did once share a house with a chap who was really bad at that sort of thing.
Occaisionally had to point out the odd Orc in his army that had a very
carefully shaded and highlit but bright red face..
Back in the days when I wrote 'serious' software rather than games, I
did some HUD / HDD design work. On of the things I've always remembered
are the rules over the use (or rather non-use) of colours. The golden
rule was that we were never allowed to differentiate between items or
states purely on colour - there always had to be some other visual cue
as well (size, font, additional text etc). For example, if you wanted to
indicate a low fuel state in one of three tanks, you couldn't just
change the colour coding for the tank from green to red - that was
insufficient. You would have had to change the size of the font, print the
word 'LOW' over the tank's display or use some other means of indication.
Apparently colour alone is not a sufficient visual cue. This was for military
aircraft, BTW.
My guess is that the only setting available for future HMDs (Helmet
Mounted Displays - at least that's what we called 'em) would be a
'brightness' setting. Giving each individual the opportunity to muck about
with colour settings is asking for trouble (just look at windows desktop
colour schemes!).
Tony
[ps - I've just been forced to switch to Outlook (ugh). I've ticked the
'use text' box for message formatting, but please shout straight away if this
is coming out in html.]
[quoted original message omitted]
From: Beth.Fulton
> Do you think the computer generated displays in the helmets of the
HUD = Heads Up Display -- eg when you're flying a plane, it's useful to
have information projected onto the glass in front of you so you can watch
your target and see your altitude at the same time, instead of having to look
down at a panel
> will be customisable colour wise? So maybe you could have "standard",
Kind of depends on your army. AE Imperial troops are all PA and usually
operate in vacuum, so are not going to be grabbing someone else's helmet.
Their HUDs have default settings but are fully customizable,
including font/symbol size, color, location, and language. AE tends to
be pretty flexible about how a small unit is run, as long as it achieves
assigned objectives (AE "platoon" = d3+2 teams, each of 2d4 troops).
On the other hand, Islamic Fed regulars are issued uniforms in the two
standard sizes (Too Large, Too Small) and their HUDs are preset at the
factory.
Beth,
That is an interesting situation. I had not thought of it for use in color
blind folks. It would be an interesting use of tech.
Might be worth looking at Steve Mann's stuff or some of the MIT Cyborgs to see
if they have wrestled with this at all.
Bob
> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
I agree that standardization is important for just the reasons you list.
However, innovative use of the tech by the users may result in settings that
work but were not found in testing.
Not the best idea again for the reasons below but worth some study from a
group who is in action and not just testing.
Magic
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
G'day,
> Might be worth looking at Steve Mann's stuff or some
Thanks mate!
> Tony Francis wrote:
> Back in the days when I wrote 'serious' software rather than games, I
For a very good reason: high g-forces can cause the blood pressure in
your eyes to drop, which in turn impairs your color vision.
Interestingly, it looks like as of late, they've gained some insights into the
specifics of what happens to color vision under these conditions, which may
mean they can make more use of color in displays in the future:
http://extra.afrl.af.mil/news/summer/features/color-feature.pdf
> My guess is that the only setting available for future HMDs (Helmet
So maybe
> you could have "standard", "colour-blind" (various kinds), "grey"
etc settings
> or you could have a limited number of settings so it suits you. Or