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Thread: Using 4th color channel for green ?

  1. #1
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    Default Using 4th color channel for green ?

    Hi all,

    I am using LD2000 and 3 projectors: 1x RGB and 2x 1W Green
    I want to use the fourth color channel for the greens.
    A trick McCarrot taught me.
    He uses it in Livepro, trains the colorpallette for High Power to have the fourth color channel open on all colors and then the greens go along with every color.
    A sort of intensity but then in software.

    I want to use this trick with Autoplay, does this work ?
    I can't seem to get it at work, i go in palette training, do Simple training.
    Slide the 4th, 5th and 6th channel open in alle profiles on all colors.
    I expected that that would give me full power green whenever a color is on.
    It said training the colorpalette, then percentage counter went up for all 3 palette, then asked to use it ? i press ok. Played a show in Autoplay, no output on 4th channel.

    But it don't work, if i connect the modulation wire of the laser on R, G or B i have signal, when i connect to 4th channel no way jose!

    Does Autoplay use the pallette you create ?
    Do i forget something ?

    Any help is appreciated. At least i am quite happy i got all 3 projectors working.
    I swapped out the cheap Ilda board which was not working correctly with differential.
    Put in another one of Rob's boards (i am getting quite used to this hahaha) and worked much better, much more power.... so i am happy. Now i need the greens to work whenever there is color displayed (like an intensity channel).

    On the other projector i made a small pcb using 6 diodes (BAT85) and works like a charm, but would be cool if i could learn the Palette trick as well.

    Hope someone understands my vague story and has advice, show is to be played fridayevening, built up tomorrow morning/early afternoon.
    Will get the diodes as a backup ;-)
    I didn't fail !
    I just found out 10,000 ways that didn't work.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    Knoxville, TN, USA
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    Default

    Autoplay should use the default projector and palette settings you have saved under LD2000 -
    but it won't necessarily override the track settings of the individual shows.

    First make sure all the shows play as expected individually, which may require adjustments to the track color balance options within each show.
    Once the shows play as expected in Showtime, they should play fine in Autoplay.
    RR

    Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
    1979.
    Sweet.....

  3. #3
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    Default

    Hey Dimitri.

    Try to set the palette manually, but DON'T train it...

    In other words, load up the medium colours test pattern, set your colours using the sliders and then save the palette from the file menu. When it says, "do you want to train the palette?", say "no". It will ask once more when you close the palette window, again, say "no".

    I found what appears to be a bug in Pangolin palettes. I would spend hours setting my palette and as soon as Pangolin trained the palette, all my settings were lost. As a test, I went back into the palette, selected the orange circle in the test pattern and turned all lasers off except deep blue. So when the software showed orange, the laser projector displayed blue. I then run palette training and it switched back to orange and not blue as I set it. I did this again without letting Pangolin train the palette and my orange circle was blue as I set it. I showed this phenomenon to Francesco at UKLEM and he was pretty sure it was a bug. He was going to report this back to Bill, but I'm not sure if he ever did this or forgot all about it.

    Anyhow, I'm not saying that this is the de facto answer to your problem, but certainly worth a try...

    Good luck
    Mark

  4. #4
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    Default

    Yeah, I've noticed weirdness with saving Pangolin colour palettes. 5 years on and I'm still not 100% comfortable its going to load up as I saved it etc..

    Anyway - on a similar note, we once ran 9 single colour lasers, 2 full colours and a big green disco scan projector independently off 5 FB3s. Actually the two full colours were mirrored off each other, but aside of those, every single other laser could be controlled independently of the others.

    10 points to the person who guesses how we did this first
    Now proudly stocking and offering the best deals on laser-wave

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  5. #5
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    Default

    Now i need the greens to work whenever there is color displayed (like an intensity channel).
    Why not use the intensity channel?

    As this will have to be open for any colour projecting, it'll do what you want, but it may only be TTL.

  6. #6
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    Because it doesnt fade in LivePRO

    edit: only read first half of post.

    Its a pretty big limitation...
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  7. #7
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    Default

    Just a few points.

    AutoPlay is just a show player -- nothing more. AutoPlay will use all of the palettes (balanced, saturated, high power) WHEN IT IS CALLED UPON TO DO SO. AutoPlay, Showtime, and even LD2000 are "called upon to do so" by the frames themselves.

    In LD2000, you can view the Advanced Frame Properties -- one of which is the palette selection. If you have a "beam frame" you can tell LD2000 that "every time you show this frame, use the high power palette", and it will, regardless of what program is used to project it.

    Note that the frame's preferred palette can be over-ridden by Showtime, just like the frame's preferred zone can as well.

    So yes, AutoPlay can absolutely use the other palettes, if it is asked to do so by either the frame or the show itself. LivePRO can also override the palettes and zones within the cue properties.

    And there are no bugs with the palette -- just bugs in the understanding of some people. But this is understandable because the color system is complex. We try to make it simple with the wizard, which honestly should do a good enough job for most people. As picky as I am and knowing the system inside and out (having written every single line of code having to do with color) I still use the wizard... It's smart. I made it smart. And it's good enough for me, so it should be good enough for other people too.

    Just one word of caution. If you tune colors and then don't train, then those colors MIGHT work here and there, but if you try to fade them, you won't get the expected results (unless you expect it to not work).

    In BEYOND we'll need to take another look at this. The color system in LD2000 was really brilliant, but it's 11 year old thinking. We should be able to come up with something better today, and given today's processing power.

    Incidentally, Patrick used to (correctly) state the 3D rotations and manipulations are nothing compared to color. Color is much harder to get right. None of Pangolin's competitors come anywhere near getting it as right as it is in LD2000.

    Best regards,

    William Benner

  8. #8
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    And there are no bugs with the palette -- just bugs in the understanding of some people. But this is understandable because the color system is complex. We try to make it simple with the wizard, which honestly should do a good enough job for most people. As picky as I am and knowing the system inside and out (having written every single line of code having to do with color) I still use the wizard... It's smart. I made it smart. And it's good enough for me, so it should be good enough for other people too.
    This can be true, but if you tell the palette to give R G B on channel 1-2-3 and full green on channel 4 it will not do what you told it to do after its trained. If you do not train and only save it does what you told it to do.

    So try not training it and see what is does. Some forum members even run 2 fully balanced RGB's from the 6 color channels.

  9. #9
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    Because it doesnt fade in LivePRO

    edit: only read first half of post.

    Its a pretty big limitation...

    I don't see the limitation as he said he just wants it on full like the intensity channel.

    In my view, based on what he's asked for, its exactly the right tool for the job and should work out of the box. Some TTL projectors even come wired to intensity out of the box.

  10. #10
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    how is not fading not a limitation ? you can't use the brightness or fade effects. We use them a bit.

    Using the fourth colour channel is a smarter way to do it.
    Now proudly stocking and offering the best deals on laser-wave

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