Good old ideas for pictorial flight displays that were once impractical warrant reconsideration in light of current microcomputing and display technology. Among the ideas are the contact analog, highway in the sky, and flight path predictor concepts. Basic pictorial display principles established in the 1950s and 1960s have been supported by additional experimental findings in the 1970s. These include pictorial realism, magnification, integration, compatible motion, frequency separation, pursuit presentation, quickening, and predicting. An extended analysis of dynamic display variables provides a broadened conceptual foundation for future multifactor experimental optimization of forward-looking pictorial flight displays.
This article traces an ergonomics research odyssey that spanned more than half a century. It started in 1950 with an airplane equipped with a periscope that projected a forward-looking view on a screen above the instrument panel and ended with a partial explanation for the illusion of a shrinking moon as it rises from the horizon. The connecting links along the way are not easy to follow and fly in the face of current theory, but the experimental findings tie the apparent size of visible objects to the focal distance of the eyes. The findings also have practical applications to the design of imaging displays and virtual reality systems.
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