Making a simple 2d panel

[hsvfan]

Hi all,
I am building a helicopter simpit based on a MD500E.
I will be using a 20 inch lcd monitor to dispaly just the gauges and placing a face plate over the top with the holes cut out were the gauges are. A 20 inch monitor is very close to the size of the actual instrument panel on the real aircraft.

I want to be able to creat a panel that takes up all the space on the monitor.

I created a test bitmap and placed that in a helicopter panel folder, re named it to make it show up. My bitmap showed up full screen but when I went to place some gauges on the panel they did not appear.
I am using a graphics programe called pixia to place the gauges for the XY co-ordinates.

Is there an simple way of creating a 2d panel make it appear full screen and place the gauges on.

Cheers

Rhys