How about this for ICONS.

[vorticon]

PEOPLE HERE Rely on Those big fluffy colored Neon Placards hanging over the enemies aircraft.

thats total crap i only glance at it every now and again to see how far they are then i go back to aiming at the TARGET (if you aim at the neon ow are you gonna hit?)

[ALF]

Originally posted by Kirin
JAB, beyond 10 meters stereoscopic vision does not play a role for depth perception anymore! The angle between the 2 pictures (from either eye) is too small. After that our brain "calculates" distances by clues like size, shadows, overlapping, markings etc., which is all clearly visible on a computer screen!

While it is true the stereoscopic vision is much more limited at greater distances, I can assure you its much farther than 10 meters (especially for larger complex objects), and keep in mine stereo vision isnt just the "angles" of our eyes, its also the fact that I see a little of the left side with my left eye, but none of it with my right eye, and occulsion etc (much as you indicate, but more so that you statement implies is because we have TWO different images to compare, unlike the monitor which has only one)

The real issue however also is one of resolution.

Please lets look at a P-51 from between 1.2 and 2.3 distance....yeah

[Kirin]

ALF, it's all about angles and 2 different pictures to compare (different angles give different pictures). Object size doesent really matter - imagine standing 10km away from Mt. Killimandscharo (spelling? LOL) - although it will fill a good proportion of your view you won't see it 3-dimensional - the 2 pictures from your eyes will be (almost) identical (your eyes fixed to "infinity" thus paralell view lines). OTH, imagine a pin 50cm away from your eyes. The stereoscopic effect does not come from seeing different sides of the object - but acutally seeing it in different positions (close one eye after the other). We don't see our world (above 10 metres or so) 3-dimensional in terms of stereoscopic but using clues we learned: e.g. 2 cars --> the smaller one is farther (if we ID them as aprox. same model), tree blocking LOS to a house --> tree is in front of house. That can cause confusion sometimes when things don't look like we learned em - extensively used in art as so called optical illusions (term?):  2 identically tall people drawn near 2 oblique lines --> our brains "thinks" perspective: we see the 2 people differ in size (try to find the picture).

A good hint are stereoscopic glasses for computer games. Let's take "MIG alley" for expample (one of the few sims the glasses really work worth playing). In 3D mode you get the impression looking into a box (monitor) with toy planes flying around because you get a (neat) 3D effect but it's not how we see the outside world thus the "box-impression".

Or real life example: ReVi gunsight in (WW2) fighters. The sight is reflected in a way that your eyes fix to infinity --> that trick makes it possible to aim at planes correctly in the first place. Iron sights do not work because your eyes near fixes on it - or infinity fixes on the target --> either one not seen sharply.

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Oedipus is right - in IL2 limited (but historical) setup up no icons work - in AH it wouldn't, unless we'd get a historical setup. In IL2 standard missions (especially VEF, to an extend IOW) you're right that the formation you run in is highly probable to be enemy but there is a online arena called DiD (Dead is Dead) which features a huge battlefield with lost of AI - there you cannot be sure if the formation you run in is enemy or not. And still icons are OFF and it works. And even when dogfights are hot, with communication and custom skins maybe, you can coordinate quite well. I've never experienced friendly kill 'till now (collision yes - when one gets tgt fixated) - that might be connected to the fact that I fly a mission format that sponsors fly to LIVE but still much less friendly fire than killshooter in AH!

[ALF]

So now please explain to me about how Im going to get all this info an size movement ect from those 6 pixel sploches again?

You certainly arnt going to get a huge difference in a picture form left to right eye of a mountain 10 miles away....but Im talking about an aircraft a few hundred meters away (where different views are a factor....and also about the size of the aircrafts "on screen representation" being inadequate to give any relevant info on the relative movement from those few pixels when they are farther away.