Blanking Problem

[White-Light]

OK thanks for all the replies guys, that sudden thought has enabled me to solve this.

I copied a hot beam cue into a spare slot int he workspace (so I'd remember to delete it straight after) and reassigned it to Atmospherics (i was behind the projector) then displayed it. Nearly all the tails disappeared when in the size controlled zone - so it was the zone sizing at fault. (Tried with another cue as well to verify). (Obviously when in Atmospherics it shrank visibly in size).

The final bit of tail I found could be got rid of by reducing the scan speed from 30K to 25K which is what Kvant now say the scanners are rated for.

Al.

[White-Light]

I'd be very interested to know if hot beams are indeed able to appear outside of set zones, as this has major implications for safe zone setup.

It's not the zones but the scan size they're falling outside of. They are still zone 9 but zone 9 seems to be independent of the scan size control. However, there may be implications here because if it scans larger than expected then it will cover a larger area - not tried it with a BAM so don't know if the BAM will protect, I would have thought so as surely BAM and scan areas are separate.

It is however reported to Pangolin and I don't know what builds are affected so it could be recent beta builds only.

[norty303]

What do you mean by 'scan size'? The main size control in the projector settings dialogue?
Have you checked the extended options for the zone (the set of tick boxes) to see if one of those is an over-ride?

BAMs shouldn't be necessary with hot beams, the zones shouldn't be set up to enter the audience area anyway. And as long as the zone is set correctly (which it should be!), then it doesn't matter.

[White-Light]

Yep.

Tool Bar at the top of the main window > Settings > Projector Settings > Size and Position.

All zones set at 50% currently in my copy but Zone 9 Hot Beams scans huge - at least 2-3 times the size of any other zone and causes tails on some cues as it over taxes the scanners.

I can only presume its somehow falling outside of the main size control.

[masterpj]

The problem seems to be in individual cues.

I've just remembered though that Hot Beams currently seem to be falling outside of the size and position settings for the scanner, something I've already reported to Pangolin. So it could be the scanners capabilities are being exceeded even though there's no scanner noise. However, the tails are in the centre of some of the patterns not in areas that fall at the edge of the scanned area.

I'll try to put some photos up but I'm absolutely useless at photographing lasers, not helped by the fact that I have a compact camera with only limited manual control.

I have the fix for you,
i had the exact same problem with a client next to me (where i was trying to sell my projector to) (and this was an kvant spectrum 2.3watt)
Not that nice to have as people will assume it's a projector problem, well no as it IS NOT a projector problem.
Right click the cue's and go to the cue properties of the cue that is giving you trails
Now click the image tab and disable Custom optimization settings for each animation that is being show in the cue settings.

This will fix your problem!

[White-Light]

Hi Pieter,

Yep it's not a problem with the projector itself, as far as I can tell, it's the hot beams that aren't being controlled by the Master Size and Position Control in the Projector Settings in Beyond.

I've put a video up for Alexey and as this doesn't show anything new in Beyond, I can link it here:

http://vimeo.com/32941547

Its a bit shaky and its uncut as it was shot on my compact camera hand held during the early hours so I wasn't going to start video editing!

This might clear up what is happening more.

But basically all zones have the same size setting in Projector Settings > Size and Position

However, Hot Beams scan beyond the set size considerably and over tax the scanners - hence the tails.

Changing a Hot Beam cue to another zone, immediately shrinks it down to the correct size and removes the tails so the problem appears to be specific to zone 9 and as a result of the size control not working for that zone correctly.

[norty303]

Ok, and have you checked the extended options for the hot zone? If it displays correctly if you switch to another zone, this would assume that there is 'something' set by default on the hot beams zone, that isn't on the others.

I seem to recall on LP that things like 'Ignore minumum points' and suchlike are set up by default for hot beam zones. I would suspect the same type of options are there for QS/Beyond (unable to confirm as not at a PC with any of the software on it!)

[White-Light]

Ok Alexey has got back to me.

Seems it may not be a software error but a setting.

It would appear that there is a setting in the advanced section of each zone that allows you to exclude any zone from the master size and position controls and it looks as for hot beams this is enabled by default.

For future reference, its the top box here:



Obviously it needs to be un-ticked.

[norty303]

See, told you