The term "glass cockpit" indicates the reproduction on the screen of one or more instruments of a cockpit.
Actually each instrument or group of instruments is a program written in C++ or any other high-level language that supports graphic libraries such as OpenGL or DirectX.
Due to the lack of finding real instruments to adapt for the simulation, I decided to develop myself my own glass cockpit.
Project Magenta (http://www.projectmagenta.com) is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) producer of payware glass cockpit instruments but unfortunately their beautiful products are out of my budget.
OpenGL is the graphic library that I decided to support in my "soft-instruments" since I found its programming easier than with DirectX.
A good site where to start with it is http://nehe.gamedev.net : you can find code examples for a lot of languages, tutorials and everything you need to develop your graphic applications.
The glass cockpit is still under development but it is nearly to the end.
The instruments (freeware) are available in the Download section of this site or on AVSIM (search for "ATR" in the "FS2004 Panels" section of the AVSIM File Library)
- engines panel
- speedometer
- variometer
- altimeter
- PFD
- EHSI
- Oil/Fuel Panel
- VOR/ADF indicator
You can use them over a network with WideFS (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson , payware) or if you don't have it you can use the server application that I included in the Engine Panel ZIP file (atrgcserver.exe, release 1.0a).
The minimum requirements are just a few: a registered copy of FSUIPC (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson) and a graphic card that supports OpenGL (like all the graphic cards of the last 5/6 years).
Here are some screenshots of the ATR72-500 glass cockpit:
