Where to begin?

[shokzi]

Hi all, im a sound engineer at live events and it's assumed i should know how to work everything, so when we got a pair of lasers with SD card readers it became my job to learn how to use them

We use Showcad controlled DMX for our other fixtures and from what i gather, i can use DMX to change the colour/shape/position of images/animations on the sd card, so for now what i'd like is a really easy way to turn images into ild images or possibly simple animations of the images? The images will mostly be text and simple images so i doubt it would be too hard, I've read about on this forum, i couldnt make head nor tail of laserboy or ishow but i tried bmp2ild (i attached my results) I've also attached 2 of the images im trying to convert.

Because this isnt my main field i dont really want to invest much (any) time/money, is there an idiots guide or a free/very cheap piece of software that does all the hard work for me?



EDM watchface.bmp.ild

[Galvonaut]

Hi Shokzi! Welcome to PL!

Where are you? It's worth filling out your profile so that people know where you are and what advice to give you!

I can't give you advice on the SD card side of things but can give you some about safety!

If you don't want to put time or money into lasers then refuse to operate them as you can permanently damage peoples' eye sight.
If you are in the UK you will need to be a laser safety officer, if in the US, you will require a variance. I'm not sure about other countries.

Most manufacturers state in their manuals that lasers should only be installed by a qualified person. This is vague and usually ignored but it is sensible not to damage eyes, set fire to buildings or cause skin burns.

Can you tell us the make and model of the lasers in question?

Keith

[shokzi]

I wasn't even aware of safety requirements, ill do some research (im in uk btw), they're from a chinese company called blues ocean, theyre 30k RGB

[shokzi]

I downloaded a trial of Quickshow and it does what i want, but how do i convert what it does into an .ild format for my lasers? if it cant, is there any other software with a similar workflow?

[Galvonaut]

Oh, where in the UK are you? If you are down south I might be able to help - worth filling out your profile!

Unfortunately Quickshow does not export ILD files, so won't help you unless your lasers have a DB25 socket on the back - and then you will need an FB3 DAC (for QS). There are cheaper ways of doing things though but may be more effort.

Another option is LSX and ILDSOS or I think ColouredMirrorBall has written a free program that does some creation and converting of ILD frames but not tried that yet.

Keith

[colouredmirrorball]

Yes, Ild Sôs would be your cheapest option. It can convert svg images to ilda files. You need to convert your logo to svg first, but chances are such a version already exists somewhere. If not, you can convert it easily with Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape.
Then you can convert it with Ild Sôs, which you can buy here: https://innolasers.com/shop/index.ph...roller=product

Keith was a little too optimistic, my program can't convert svg to ilda, but it is made with Processing. This is a programming enviroment which has native SVG support, so if you can figure out a way to trace SVG files and convert them to points, you can integrate this with my program and get your ilda files the free way.

[shokzi]

Thanks for your help so far, i've looked at ildsos and LSX, does LSX have the functions of ildsos or would i be looking at buying both?

[colouredmirrorball]

Normally Ild Sôs is included with LSX.

[Datsurb]

I would like to point out that the logos attached probably will be projected with heavy flickering. Chineese laser with 30K scanners seldom performs at 30K. For the first logo "every decibel matters" have a lot of sharp cornes, meaning that the scanners have to make sharp turns for repossisioning. I use a PT 40K scanner, and all my experience tells med that the first logo will flicker rather much. The second will also flicker, but probably less. It is not always about the number of points in an ILD file, but also how many twists and turns the galvos have to perform.

I hope this does not scare you away. My personally would reccomend Pangolin Quickshow with FB3, as it is quite easy to use, and it brings out the best in a cheap laserprojector. (Buildt in SD reader can not be compared resultwise when it comes to flickering of the same ILD file)

[andyf97]

A sound engineer on PL playing with Lasers, no lights guy in that venue?

for ease of use get beyond; that will solve all your logo needs from the drawing point of view in a few quick steps, but really the top logo is going to flicker like crazy no matter what software you use. Best is to split the image onto two lasers units and then you can use any old software and have much better logos, I have used even 6 for a really complex logo.

Fiesta and Moncha also do very nice logos, I find them to give the brightest and strongest least flickery images out of all the commercial packages.

Hi all, im a sound engineer at live events and it's assumed i should know how to work everything, so when we got a pair of lasers with SD card readers it became my job to learn how to use them

We use Showcad controlled DMX for our other fixtures and from what i gather, i can use DMX to change the colour/shape/position of images/animations on the sd card, so for now what i'd like is a really easy way to turn images into ild images or possibly simple animations of the images? The images will mostly be text and simple images so i doubt it would be too hard, I've read about on this forum, i couldnt make head nor tail of laserboy or ishow but i tried bmp2ild (i attached my results) I've also attached 2 of the images im trying to convert.

Because this isnt my main field i dont really want to invest much (any) time/money, is there an idiots guide or a free/very cheap piece of software that does all the hard work for me?



EDM watchface.bmp.ild