The use of object-oriented tools in the development of a pilot's vision simulation program to aid in the conceptual design of aircraft

Abstract

This thesis discusses the research and development of a program to aid the aircraft designer with determining the pilot's visual acuity. The discussion involves the use of Object-Oriented programming, the use of a graphical user interface based upon the graphics standard PHIGS (Programmers Hierarchical interactive Graphics System) and the integration of this Pilot's View Module with an existing aircraft CAD (Computer Aided Design) program known as ACSYNT. The result is a program that lends itself to reuse and easy modification and is device independent. The main purpose of the pilot's view module is to provide total vision plots for the pilot in accordance with the military standards as stated in the document 850B. These standards include visibility design goals for several types of aircraft as well as methods for calculating and presenting the vision plots. The integration of the pilots view module with ACSYNT affords the designer the ability to examine the trade-offs associated with a particular cockpit design and the performance of that design within one CAD program.