A night visual aircraft system receives flight data from an aircraft simulator, and terrain data from the gaming area data base. A computer within the night visual system organizes this image data by frame in a buffer memory according to a particular format of addresses, sequences, and bit places. The following types of image data are uniquely positioned in the format: A position vector (Vp), defining the changing position of the aircraft with respct to the terrain data origin. Rotational matrix data defining the changing attitude of the aircraft with respect to the axes of the terrain coordinate system. Initialization vectors (Vi), defining the position of certain landmark terrain lights (initial points) with respect to the position of the aircraft. Delta data, defining the position of other lights with respect to the landmark lights. String data, defining the spacing, color, intensity, and number of lights in a string of lights having equal spacing and intensity. Cif data, defining the color, intensity, and defocus of individual lights. Transfer data which is coded to identify the type of the subsequent data. An image processor receives the formatted image data and translates delta data into a light source vector (Vls) defining the position relationship between each light source and the aircraft; rotates the Vls into channel vectors (Vc) according to the window orientation and the attitude (pitch, yaw and roll) of the aircraft; and projects each three-dimensional Vc into a two-dimension display vector (Vd). An image generator receives the Vd and other image data to provide analog inputs to a CRT device which provides a window display in the simulated aircraft.

In response to timing signals, a first read-only memory provides elevation signals to a display having a spherical viewing surface. The timing signals and the output of the first read only memory are additionally provided to a second and a third read only memory which respectively provide azimuth signals to the display and input signals to a digital image generator. In response to the elevation and azimuth signals, a beam provides a raster of great circles on the viewing surface. The timing signals are additionally provided to the digital image generator which provides to the display a representation of a stored image which is viewed in a desired perspective from an eyepoint.

Apparatus which will provide, to a visual display comprising a plurality of scanned raster devices such as television monitors arranged to form a continuous display, a means of placing a high resolution image, which may be larger than the size of one device or monitor but smaller than the size of the total display, in a controlled position on one or more of the monitors in a manner such that the image will appear to be continuous from one monitor to another.

An array of laterally-abutted Fresnel magnifying lenses in combination with an aligned array of image generators having particular spaced-apart objective images derived from an original image, displays such objective images for viewing as a unitary magnified original image without noticeable overlap or distortion throughout an appreciable theater space.

The invention relates to a device for simulating navigation at sea. It is intended for mounting above the bridge of a supposedly moving observer ship and serves for the projection, on a cylindrical screen, of images of movable ships or of coastlines. The device comprises as many superimposed concentric plates as there are ships under observation. Each plate rotates as a function of the bearing of the ship being observed with respect to the observer ship. Each plate carries a projector having a focal line objective which can be adjusted in relation to the distance that separates the observer ship and the sighted ship. Each plate further carries, associated with the projector, a particular device for displacing a number of transparent slides successively fed into the projector, the succession being carried out in relation to the inclinations of the ship being sighted with respect to the observer ship. Each transparent slide illustrates the ship being sighted in one of a number of successive positions of the said ship when the latter makes a complete turn about its own axis.