Had a great idea, but I need help implementing

maxxell · 12-23-2004, 02:43 PM

Okay, I had a fantastic idea on the way home tonight. Unfortunately, I have no coding background so I need some help.

So here's the plan. Everyone's familiar with that windows starfied simulation screen saver, right? So picture this... Synch the speed of the simulation with the information coming from the ECU for the car's speed. IE, when you stop, the stars stop, when you start, the stars start, when you go fast, the stars go fast. Pretty simple, but damn cool. That's phase 1.

Phase 2 might be tricky, or might be easy, I dont know enough about OBD to know. I would like to set it up to not only get speed information, but directional information as well. It could be just from the position of the steering wheel, or even better from a compass or something (perhaps feeding from a gps/nav system?)

Phase 3, the final frontier. This may be completely science fiction, but how awesome would it be to load an actual 3-dimensional starmap into the program, and have the ecu information feed the program to have it basically fly around the galaxy with real constellations flying by.

Okay, phase 3 is probably unrealistic.. but what about the first two? How difficult would it be to code something like that in, just using random points for the stars? Anyone have any ideas how to do it? What coding language would I have to (eek) learn in order to pull something like this off? Anyone care to lend a hand?

Nufis · 12-23-2004, 04:58 PM

...and here the realistic Phase I,II and III - not to fly through starfields, but to move through real 3D fuel and ignition maps, showing the point at which you really are within them in realtime (something like what was seen in 'Fast and Furious')

But your idea is great also... Additionally, the stars could change colors or/and size when you're cornering/accelerating/decelerating based on readings from small accelerometer (btw useful for GPS maintaining while you're passing tunnel), and blurr (zoom) out (like in films when starship enters hyperspace) when turbine is engaged.

cbergeron · 12-23-2004, 05:09 PM

Great idea. But why use the ECU data from OBDII? It would be much easier to just take the speed from the GPS unit.

I like this idea - I hope you wouldn't mind if we integrated into the DashPC software.

maxxell · 12-23-2004, 06:40 PM

I dont know how to get the information out of the GPS unit. I know the OBDII is designed for just that, getting data from the ECU to the computer, if we're stealing the information from the GPS when the GPS isn't designed to give out that information... I dont know. You all clearly know more about this than I do. If it can be drawn from the GPS, more power to ya.

As for the DashPC integration. I dont mind, if you let me know how you did it and how I can do it on my system. What is DashPC, by the way? Is it a software platform for a carputer or is it the entire hardware / software package? Sounds neat. What do you use for a power supply?

By the way, I like all of your ideas. But the main question remains the same, anybody actually know how to get this project off the ground?