Re: [ds, sg] tech and scratchbuild questions

Tony Francis wrote:

 > 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.

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
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.]
 >
 > -----Original Message----- From: Beth.Fulton@csiro.au
 > [mailto:Beth.Fulton@csiro.au] Sent: 18 April 2002 10:56 To:
 > gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu Subject: [ds, sg] tech and scratchbuild
questions
 >
 >
 > 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.
 >
 >
 >

--