I'm a newb here and will be posting an introduction post soon but had a couple of quick questions.
I'm making a custom XML HUD for personal use and had a couple of questions about using vector objects (ie polylines, shapes, etc) versus BMP in the moving parts. As an example we'll just talk about the "ladder" used for "Pitch Scale"in a HUD. From the visual stand point the Vector approach is definitely going to give a cleaner/sharper/resolution independent result. While code overhead of the manipulation of the ladder object in either approach would, I assume, be the same, there is a lot of code involved in "drawing" a vector based ladder (not to mention all the other moving elements) v. just calling up an image bitmap. From a performance standpoint I have no idea which approach method is going to take the least amount of system resources and give the best FPS results ??? thoughts or experience ?
Then working with XML vector graphics, can the code for vector object be kept in a "container" in separate XML file or other file type and called similarly to the way one would use/call an image BMP object ? I have studied a few examples of vector based object creation and use and noticed that every time and object is used in different places in a gauge that all the code for drawing the object is re-entered. These seems to be a very in-efficient method.
The whole reverse polish notation thing drives me nuts, and in my limited experience ACE it is not a very elegant tool for gauge design. The ACE process seems very unnecessarily wordy. Is there a better way ? I've used the infix2postfix process but from a POV of writing and being able to read , comment in your scripts/code, what is the best work flow for dealing with this aspect? Is there a better tool to use? I got a trial of FS Panel Studio but at first glance it seems to be more of a panel editing tool than a gauge creation tool?? I normally use Notepad++ to write XML and script code.
thanks for your input
Joel
I'm making a custom XML HUD for personal use and had a couple of questions about using vector objects (ie polylines, shapes, etc) versus BMP in the moving parts. As an example we'll just talk about the "ladder" used for "Pitch Scale"in a HUD. From the visual stand point the Vector approach is definitely going to give a cleaner/sharper/resolution independent result. While code overhead of the manipulation of the ladder object in either approach would, I assume, be the same, there is a lot of code involved in "drawing" a vector based ladder (not to mention all the other moving elements) v. just calling up an image bitmap. From a performance standpoint I have no idea which approach method is going to take the least amount of system resources and give the best FPS results ??? thoughts or experience ?
Then working with XML vector graphics, can the code for vector object be kept in a "container" in separate XML file or other file type and called similarly to the way one would use/call an image BMP object ? I have studied a few examples of vector based object creation and use and noticed that every time and object is used in different places in a gauge that all the code for drawing the object is re-entered. These seems to be a very in-efficient method.
The whole reverse polish notation thing drives me nuts, and in my limited experience ACE it is not a very elegant tool for gauge design. The ACE process seems very unnecessarily wordy. Is there a better way ? I've used the infix2postfix process but from a POV of writing and being able to read , comment in your scripts/code, what is the best work flow for dealing with this aspect? Is there a better tool to use? I got a trial of FS Panel Studio but at first glance it seems to be more of a panel editing tool than a gauge creation tool?? I normally use Notepad++ to write XML and script code.
thanks for your input
Joel