Erics 6DOF Ride Simulator - Ride-u-lator

Hi,

I'm fairly new to the group, and I'm getting far enough along to share my progress on a 6DOF motion simulator designed for amusement park ride and real-world simulation. Here are some of the specs:

• 
  * Six Exlar GSX20 6 Roller Screw actuators
  * Six Control Techniques (Emerson) Epsilon Servo Drives
  * Modbus over RS232 (followed by a cascade of RS485 to each drive)
  * Fully enclosed in a Geodesic Dome
  * Interior projection filling about 180 degrees of the dome
  * Dell XPS 720 Quad core
  * Most likely x-sim and a modified version of 6dofMaster for software control
  * C# or C++ modbus drivers (custom)

Seems like it could use a name... hmm... how about Ride-u-lator? (please feel free to make suggestions).

A few years back I built one of only a few personal Haunted House rides in my garage. The 36V car can carry two people around a twisty track through 5 or 6 scenes. We operate it anually, just one day a year, and last year we put about 200 people through. As you can imagine - its a ton of work (fun, but work). The motion simulator is my idea for an eventual replacement for the haunt ride, although I could imagine one or two years of doing both.

These links are of my last project (the haunt ride), not a motion sim:

• 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IcC0YFu2WE
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rCg_EgNmPE

Eric

Here are some pictures of the 6DOF in progress:

I also added a bunch of pictures on fabricating the joints from the actuator to the base, using a $13 Harbor Freight castor.

http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/gallery/album.php?album_id=31

Geez, what's it take to get a comment around here? New guy, 6DOF, photos, video, geodesic dome projection for gosh sakes...

I guess x-sim is not a very social place?

Well you did a great yob.
It's looking great,
About youre dome, mirror dome projection from Paul Burke would be nice in it!
I like youre universal joints.
Regards Ad

Thanks adgun,

Re: Paul Burke and dome projection... he was the inspiration, but I created a variation that uses only a convex mirror (as opposed to a half-sphere) and looks pretty dang good without pre-distorting the output. Paul uses some filtering technology that's apparently unique to QuickTime to correct for the spherical distortion and even if I could get that for movies, I doubt it would be available for any given video game.

However... if you know of any filtering (for Windows), I'd love to try it. The motion-platform dome is a little small for full sphere projection, because you need to be able to keep out of the way of the beam (and the beam is everywhere). I did, however, test the projection off a real half-sphere mirror in a large room with vaulted ceilings... although it was distorted, it was pretty awesome - the movie was on just about every surface in the room

Eric

P.S. Thanks for the comment... I thought maybe I didn't know the x-sim secret handshake or something ;-)

LOL... now you must be thinking we are some kind technocratic party or something... No. Just too busy from time to time to get proper feedback to our new members. Its summer and really hot to think of these... instead of beaches full of baywatch babes... :lol:

Anyway, welcome! I find your attempt really serious try for excellent results in motion... A bit more info (datasheets) would be better to see more details of it. And I like a lot the GeoDome idea as projection screen. I was given a half geodome dimentions for a ball mirrored projection screen on my motion sim, that never proceeded as could not find cheap and reliable projector...

I think you will need to study the Planmix's work on 6DOF for start. Soft limit filters can be made and simulated in matlab.


Regards, Thanos

Thanks for the props and tips Thanos. I wouldn't expect to get attention over the baywatch babes ;-)

Something interesting about spherical (or convex) mirror projection... you must find a projector that can focus at whatever the distance that your convex mirror is from the projector. If it is in focus when it reaches the mirror, it seems to stay in focus indefinately. If it is not in focus, changing the distance from the mirror to the wall won't help. This is much different than a normal flat mirror, which doesn't seem to affect the focus at all (you can have one a few inches away from the lens without any problem).

I am trying to upgrade from a 1024x768 projector to a 1400x1050 projector, and it is very challenging to fit it into the dome unobtrusively because it takes another 1-1.5 feet for it to focus.

What you need is Sol7 soft ( http://immersaview.com/curved.html ) but i cant imagine price

:lol:

Unfortunately, domes are much more complicated than simple curved screens Fortunately, my dome only cost about $60 + 2 days labor. The current version is painted with Behr Silverscreen paint in the projection area and looks pretty darn good.

What is advantage of dome ?

Well... its dome-like

A few of things:

1. The entire dome weighs 20lbs - probably substantially less than any monitor and monitor support system. Its very strong, though I would build it differently if I did it again.
2. You are fully enclosed, so there is no outside reference to corrupt the illusion
3. The image fills much more or your peripheral vision (side to side, and up and down). Ideally, you can't see anything that isn't projected without turning your head.
4. If someone outside the simulator gets whacked by the simulator, at least its a rounded (cardboard) structure, not a steel beam.

Bottom line: Who knows - I've never built one, but I think it is going to ROCK!

I mean it like what is advanvantage against for exapmle http://www.frex.com/gp/canopy/canopy_en.html
What i dont get it how you project image on panels (i know by projector, but it cant have proper image ? ).But it will look cool thats for sure : :yes:

The frex canopy looks cool. How much is it and where can you buy it?

Thats about how much area I project on in the dome. A standard 4x3 projector is on the floor under the screen. It projects on a 8.5 - 18 convex mirror situated behind about where the steering yoke would be, and the image bounces back (spreading very quickly) to the screen, filling the area.

Eric

Frex canopy: ~$1300.00 Plus shipping from Japan

Now you know why my dome is better ;-)

Yea and my tip is that the price is without projector D

A lot of money for something thats isn't working very well
Projectors having a focus length,in these length the picters stay sharp.
It's inpossible to get the canope complete sharp filled, to much depth
It's stolen from a spanjard made a umbrella for war games(its on the forum somewhere)
I have tried it, making a windscreen from seetrou projector screen ,and have taken it out because the distorsion.
With a longtrow projector its douable(more focuslength and less distorsion)but you need a very big room
regards Ad

d'oh seems i picked up on this topic somewhere else but interesting though Adgun could you provide a sketch regading the setup you described and the War game idea ? is it in this forum? just after soem background info , may not come to much but worth a look

Its true that the focus is less sharp at the corners in my dome (though text is still readable). However, it should be possible to situate it so that is not the case. If you think about it, a dome should actually be more focusable because every beam of light has the same distance to the surface (whereas with a flat surface, the center is closer to the lens than the edges.)

The trick is that the mirror must be in the dead center of the dome to achieve this, but its much nicer for a simulator if it is offset down a bit (so you don't have to look around the mirror). I'm not sure if they use a convex mirror in the canopy solution, but I think thats probably an important part.

Eric

Let me clarify that. My geodesic screen dome is front projection. In this case, the focus should be able to be better than a flat screen. jDome is rear projection. In this case, it would be difficult to focus the edges.