confused about software/DAC requirements of laser projectors

[Bradfo69]

Here's the laser projector programs I've found so far:
1) Pangolin quickshow/beyond
2) LSX Pro
3) Moncha 2.0
4) Spaghetti
5) Fiesta!
6) Digisynth
7) Lasergraph DSP Mark 2
8) Medialas MIII
9) LaserCam Pro and ILD SOS

I don't have a lot of time to respond to this but, I hope to come back and put prices alongside your selections and my comments. I have 7 of the packages on your list. The one thing that I will tell you is don't concern yourself with Digisynth or Lasergraph DSP at this point - both are north of $5,000 and as a new person coming in, you don't even need to "think" about them at this point. Some of your list is software only and, does not come with any hardware (DAC) but you purchase a DAC separately. A few other have their own proprietery DAC's (to a degree) such as Moncha, Fiesta and MIII. I say to a degree because for example the Moncha DAC works with LSX. Other software/hardware packages include Phoenix 4 and Laserworld Showeditor - both of which I have also.

What you plan to do with your projector is very helpful to know in order to give you good answers and certain packages excel at certain tasks. What are your aspirations?

[polishedball]

I don't have a lot of time to respond to this but, I hope to come back and put prices alongside your selections and my comments. I have 7 of the packages on your list. The one thing that I will tell you is don't concern yourself with Digisynth or Lasergraph DSP at this point - both are north of $5,000 and as a new person coming in, you don't even need to "think" about them at this point. Some of your list is software only and, does not come with any hardware (DAC) but you purchase a DAC separately. A few other have their own proprietery DAC's (to a degree) such as Moncha, Fiesta and MIII. I say to a degree because for example the Moncha DAC works with LSX. Other software/hardware packages include Phoenix 4 and Laserworld Showeditor - both of which I have also.

What you plan to do with your projector is very helpful to know in order to give you good answers and certain packages excel at certain tasks. What are your aspirations?

Have you been around long enough to consider them

Ahh sick sick addiction

[White-Light]

Wow, that's a lot of replies


1) Pangolin seems to include a program called "TraceIt" which can convert bitmap to vector. Not sure if individual programs like this need Pangolin DAC or they can create ILDAs which can later be played with other programs.

In both QS and Beyond tracing facilities are built in and there's no need for a separate tracing software.

Pangolin software doesn't output ILDA but its not alone there. Most major professional manufacturers solutions now use propitiatory file formats to stop piracy and also because the file formats can carry further information that can't be included in ILDA - ILDA is an old standard now, last being updated in around 2004 I believe and now seemingly abandoned by ILDA the Organisation. Only the hobbyist solutions tend to use ILDA these days although most of the professional software will allow you to import ILDA files.

The most powerful software out there is Pangolin Beyond and Pangolin is pretty much the industry standard software for professional laserists. Below Beyond in cost you're looking at software such as Phoenix, Mamba, Fiesta, and then LSX.

If you're wanting to do silhouette animations then presently, Lasercam is probably your best choice for rendering those in combination with any packages mentioned that allow ILDA import.

[swamidog]

In my experience, pangolin's traceit implodes if you feed it anything more than a small number of frames to auto trace.

Wow, that's a lot of replies

So I was right, some programs will only work with some DAC. Gotta be careful then.


Oh, a DAC-indepedent program and completely free. Nice.


"silhouette" animations.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15...-0184_creation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEdAym6QsbI

1) Pangolin seems to include a program called "TraceIt" which can convert bitmap to vector. Not sure if individual programs like this need Pangolin DAC or they can create ILDAs which can later be played with other programs.
2) There's also LaserCam which is pretty cheap and can do that, but I haven't gotten a reply from the author yet.
3) Another one I've found which always crashes at some point and leaves a half-rendered ilda animation: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...nversion/page2
4) I'm not sure but there's a possibility LSX can do that too, again the author is away and hasn't responded to my question yet: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...?highlight=LSX
5) Finally the program mentioned in the 13th post in this thread can apparently do that: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...055#post272055
Don't know if it can export ILDA or only does that in realtime, I need the former. http://marcansoft.com/blog/2010/11/o...aser-graphics/
Can't find a Windows version.

[Galvonaut]

Hi dream
Can't add much here as a newb myself but the easylase is also available with dmx which may or may not be handy for what you are doing. I'll mainly be using it for triggering smoke machines and other additional effects. Both LSX and Quickshow can control dmx IIRC.

For my purposes, I will be using LSX and lasercam for cue creation, then possibly using quickshow to trigger cues, although LSX is apparently quite flexible in this respect.
As a beginner Quickshow is super-easy to use and has a lot of hidden features which you can explore at will. LSX is a supposed to be a steep learning curve but I can't wait for it to arrive. Thankfully there are some amazing LSX junkies here (CMB & Swamidog) who create content that melts minds! They also share a bit of their witchcraftery!

Keith

[White-Light]

In my experience, pangolin's traceit implodes if you feed it anything more than a small number of frames to auto trace.

Traceit is no longer intended to be used as the primary tool. Both QS and Beyond have tracing tools built into the main interface in the QuickFX area. Traceit is more a legacy product that anything now.

The only thing that the current Pangolin trace facilities don't do is video. Whether or not that will be incorporated I don't know. Pangolin are the people to ask here.

I understand and agree with your post, except this part, not that it's too important, but I don't see how exporting to a common format can help piracy.

I think its because in the past professional companies were supplying their software with vast cue libraries and then these were being exported and some of them were turning up in Chinese programme workspaces and on-line sharing sites.

The lack of ILDA export is hardly an issue unless you intend to run multiple different programmes for some reason. Programmes such as Beyond are pretty comprehensive. The only thing you might want that I can think of is a video to ILDA convertor but in any case you'd be importing into Pangolin and not exporting in that case. Also, Pangolin have a cue and show sharing site called Pangolin Showspace where users can share and download content for free. This means there is a way of sharing with other Pangolin users across the world and somewhere you can go to get free content.

[Galvonaut]

[Snip]Also, Pangolin have a cue and show sharing site called Pangolin Showspace where users can share and download content for free. This means there is a way of sharing with other Pangolin users across the world and somewhere you can go to get free content.

* but only if you buy from an authorised dealer

[james]

The Ultimate Equalizer in all of this is the fact that a set of laser control signals, X, Y, red, green & blue, (and stereo audio) can be recorded using either an ADAT or a multi-channel audio device like the echo Layla 24/96. It really doesn't matter where those signals originated.

Now they are waves!

James.

[polishedball]

* but only if you buy from an authorised dealer

Really they must have changed the rules, I have an account there and it only needed the qm2000 serial when I signed up in the very beginning I bought it used and it worked fine.

[Galvonaut]

I had an email from Bill stating in no uncertain terms that I could not have access.
Probably not a bad thing to be honest as it's pushed me towards LSX.