Watchfaces: Fliegeruhr Type B, The One, Qo'noS

Qo'noS feedback: great watchface, my favourite now :)
Qo'noS feature request:
- diver hands to be transparent in the middle (or configurable). Currently the hands are just taking the background colour which is awkward when the hand is hovering over some data undeneath
- in custom mode the size of the left-right circles should be configurable and also the function of each circle. For example, the 2 most important data: date and steps, should be big circles while the battery level and HRM should be small (at least in my vision).
- the position of the 4 functional icons (BT, ALM, MSG and BAT) would be nice to be configurable (I mean, fixed positions, configurable functions).
- I don't know if is a SDK limitation or an optimisation "feature" but is there a possibility to have a 1:1 pixel resolution for the hands? Currently they look like they were small then stretched to fill up the space => pixelation.

That's all for now ... more feedback to come :)

Thanks for the feedback!

- diver hands to be transparent in the middle (or configurable). Currently the hands are just taking the background colour which is awkward when the hand is hovering over some data undeneath
Definitely on my list. It's possible, but not so simple as I cant't just cut out one ploygon from another, so I have to draw the hands more complex. I'll try it to check if it doesn't affect the watchface performance (latence).
The original Garmin watchfaces also just simulate the transparent hands...

- in custom mode the size of the left-right circles should be configurable and also the function of each circle. For example, the 2 most important data: date and steps, should be big circles while the battery level and HRM should be small (at least in my vision).
Yep, also on my list to make everything configureable. This is also a bit difficult because the watchface background itself depends on what circle configuration and -size you use. (ticks only, ticks+6/12, ticks+3/6/9/12). I have to automate that, otherwise people start complaining that the circles go over the numbers if they use wrong combinations. But I'll do something in that direction... maybe have 3-4 different but fixed layouts to chose from with the possibility to set the contents...

- the position of the 4 functional icons (BT, ALM, MSG and BAT) would be nice to be configurable (I mean, fixed positions, configurable functions).
Can be done. But I'm not yet sure I'll do it, because the configuration list is already quite long... let's see-

- I don't know if is a SDK limitation or an optimisation "feature" but is there a possibility to have a 1:1 pixel resolution for the hands? Currently they look like they were small then stretched to fill up the space => pixelation.
All graphics realted stuff is definitely a Garmin thing. I'm not using any Bitmaps or whatever for the hands, everything is drawn with graphic functions. The main problem is, that the display has only a 218x218px resolution, which is not much. And the display is limited to 14 colors, if more colors are used, the graphics are dithered which looks quite crappy. The native Garmin watchfaces looks a bit nicer, I know. But as they are no standalone programs but are embedded in the firmware, they have access to some improved features like apparently antialiasing and a persistent second hand, for external watchfaces the second hand can only be shown for ~8 seconds due to power saving reasons.
It's possible to enhance the look of the hands a bit when using a fitting combination of background color, hands color and hands contour color... e.g. black background, white hands and light gray contour looks quite ok

The transparent hands are only a matter of programming, as mentioned. Unfortunately, the Garmin SDK doesn't support image rotation, therefore it's currently impossible to make hands from Bitmaps. They plan to have it at some point in the future, but it's not available yet. I'd like to have it because more complex hands designs would be much simpler.
This means, every hand is a combination of different Polygons with a trigonometric function for each and every corner point. For a simple hand, rectangular shaped with a rectangular cut-out, this would require 3 polygons with a total of 20 points, each one calculated by a trigonometric formula. Mor complex designs require even more points - times 2 for both hands...
This has an impact on the watchface latency and is a reason why I did the simple version without see-through so far, for the mentioned example this requires only 12 points. But as I already said, It's on my agenda. But - this polygon approach also means, that the hands are always rendered to the highest available resolution, which brings me to your next point.

There are only 2 things that can cause such a distortion: Using a color outside the fixed color palette and using a linewidth greater than 1, this is currently buggy in the SDK - and normally I'm doing neither the one nor the other...
Could you please send me the detailled color configuration for the photo you sent me? (hands, hands contour and hands highlight). And have you tried some other hands/color combinations? Because you're absolutely right, after looking at the photo I now understand what you mean, but on my F3 HR all the hands (including the diver) have clear edges, like the ones on the other screenshot from the HandsFive. On your photo it looks like the color used for the frame is not in the color palette of the watch and therefore, dithering is applied. This could be due to a mistake in the color config, but I could not replicate it so far...

Please also check, which Firmware Version you have, maybe you have an older CIQ Version?

I have:
Version 3.60
Display 3.50
...
CIQ 1.3.1

As soon as I can replicate that problem, I can fix it.


Edit: Crappy photo, don't have my DSLR with me, but here's a screenshot from the simulator, which is pixel-accurate to the real watch:

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I actually downloaded the SDK and I was about to experiment with some simple designs but considering the complexity of the rendering, I might need some extra time for it ... so I'll go with your creation (still my favourite so far :) ) until then and maybe even after I'll satisfy my development curiosity.

Ok, back to the technical details:

I used to have these settings

Now I changed the outer hands colour to black and the contour is as sharp as in your picture. Also I saw that everything that is "dark grey" looks a little dithered. Maybe it is a limitation of the watch itself (I didn't considered this before).

Thank you again for the great work you're doing. I'll write more here as I'll have something to talk about.

My watch:
Firmware 3.61
Display 3.50
CIQ 1.3.3

Update to version 1.2.2+ and enjoy some "handy" transparency :)

Awesome stuff :).

Thank you.

Disable

Would it be possible to disable the seconds hand alltogether ? (Better for the battery life)

thx

This would be possible, of course, but the impact on power consumption would be minimal. The second hand is normally very simple in comparison to the other design elements. And in high power mode, everything is redrawn once per second, adding or removing the second hand to that list doesn't make much difference.

But it would make sense to have an option to disable the high power mode at all, but this can't be done from the watchface, only from the firmware.
The watchface could be modified to draw any update only when the seconds value is 0/60, this would save a little more power but not much as the program is running anyway...

But I'm open to all suggestions to improve efficiency or save power...

The Aeronaut

Hello,
I LOVE this watchface and would be willing to contribute but cannot make any changes to settings on my F3. Example: Looking to change Right LCD line 1 to Sunrise and Left to Sunset does not work and neither does any other settings for the free version.