FSX.voidstar.co.za

About

I experimented with FreeTrack but had only limited success. The hardware was cumbersome and uncomfortable, and the software took a long time to tweak, and then still wasn't perfect. That said, FreeTrack is an excellent concept and well worth trying out. Well done to the FreeTrack developers for their efforts!
I decided to rather investigate an "automatic" head-tracking system. At that time I was a PPL student, and had some flying experience, so I knew what the natural instincts would be in terms of where one would be looking when doing certain things in the cockpit. Most obvious of course was "looking where one one is going", ie looking to see where the aircraft is headed into a turn. So Banking Camera was born.

How it works

The program hooks into FSX via Simconnect - the API provided by Microsoft for the purposes of extending FSX functionality. What it does is enquire as to the bank angle of the aircraft and banks the camera accordingly. If the hatswitch of Joystick #0 is activated, the banking is disabled for three seconds to allow you to look around. After the 3 seconds, it snaps back to the banked view.

Bugs/Issues

Snapping back to the forward view is too rapid. Unfortunately, I can't find a way in Simconnect to query the camera orientation, and then smoothly transition back to the banked view. If someone knows, please let me know!
Hatswitch events are only monitored for on Joystick #0. If you have more than one Joystick defined (ie hatswitch is not on Joystick #0), it will produce an ugly contradiction between the banking camera and the hatswitch.
To get around this for now, configure the Joystick that has the hatswitch on it as the 1st joystick, ie Joystick #0.
Version 1.0 had no keyboard shortcut to Pause (ie disable) the banking camera. Version 1.1 is configured to use "Ctrl+p" by default. You can configure any key combination you like using the .ini file.
I use FSX to practice manouvres and procedures for real world flying. I never set radios, switches etc on FSX, so that wasn't a concern for me. I found that the banking camera provided a more realistic cockpit feel, and better visibility especially in the circuit. It was never intended for aerobatics/combat. Any manouvres exceeding rate 1 turns would produce a somewhat unnatural camera angle. However, in Version 1.1, the camera bank is now limited to 40° left/right by default. You can configure the bank angle limit using the .ini file.
Any other add-in that manipulates the camera will conflict with Banking Camera. There is no way around this!

Installation & Usage

Installation is automatic using the installer. No changes are made to the FSX installation or configuration.
A configuration file called "Banking Camera.ini" is created in the Windows folder.
There is a shortcut to edit this file in the Programs Menu.
You can specify the keyboard shortcut to Pause(ie disable) Banking Camera, and the camera bank angle limit.
Key combinations must be specified as follows: Ctrl for Control, Shift for Shift, Alt for Alt.
For Example: Ctrl+Shift+p
To run, start FSX, then start Banking Camera. If you want, you can have FSX start Banking Camera automatically using a file called exe.xml (part of FSX). More detail to follow when time allows.

Thanks

Thanks to the following people for their ideas/constructive criticism.
Please note that I am not a professional programmer and don't have a lot of time to spend on this, but please feel free to send a mail if you have a question or suggestion, or better still, you have some knowledge of Simconnect that you can share with me;)

In no particular order, thanks to:

Ross McLennan, Adelaide, South Australia - Suggested limiting bank angle
Bruno G.F.van Mulken - started this thread on Flightsim
Luis - requested keyboard shortcut for Pause
Jon L. Houston, Dartmouth, Canada - requested keyboard shortcut for Pause