ILDA file viewer

[buffo]

I think the newer LDS file is the one that is secure. My Alphalite will read LDB files...

Adam

[carmangary]

Does anyone know where the LDB format is described?

[Pangolin]

LDB is a proprietary, undocumented format, that took on several flavors over the years. People whose software can load LDB (or appear to load) invariably won't be able to load all flavors, because we never distributed documentation about that format.

Moreover, people are STRONGLY encouraged NOT to load LDB. Some of the reasons are as follows:

1. LDB is proprietary, undocumented, and took on multiple flavors over the years, so software that will load one flavor will invariably not be able to load other flavors. Therefore you do your users a disservice by stating that you load LDB because one day, users will come across a flavor that won't load...

2. LDB was only used on our QM32 system. This system could export to the ILDA format. Therefore any legitimate, licensed Pangolin user can export frames to the ILDA format. If there are legitimate, licensed users of Pangolin's QM32 system, they are the only people licensed and legitimate enough and licensed to use LDB. If they want to give frames that THEY created (not the ones we supply, under license, to end users, but ones that they really created themselves), then they could export frames to ILDA.

3. Any file viewer or other program is best suited to load ILDA. If they can load ILDA, then they can access the frames in LDB format, because legitimate, licensed Pangolin users can export LDB to ILDA.

4. If someone does not have Pangolin software, the greatest likelihood is that they have no legitimate reason to read LDB frames. LDB frames were distributed only on our older QM32 software. There are a lot of frames that Pangolin distributed with that system which are covered under license. Although a software program may be able to read the LDB format, it doesn't mean that they are licensed to do so.

With all Pangolin systems, we include a license agreement. That license agreement states that (among other things) Pangolin has provided numerous frame and show files (in the LD2000 system, over 100 shows and over 300,000 frames). We refer to the content that we provide as "Pangolin-Provided Show Elements", or PPSEs for short. Over the years, Pangolin has spent probably over $250,000 acquiring the rights to distribute that content. And even if you put a very modest price of $1 per frame (such a low price I have never seen offered in the industry), you can see that Pangolin provides more value in show material, than the value of the hardware and software itself.

Within the past few years, Pangolin, and other companies including Laser Animation Sollinger, Strictly FX, Laser Entertainment S.R.L (milan italy), HW Lasertechnik, Tarm, and others have taken legal action against companies who infringed the terms of our license agreement, or unlawfully distributed (or even used) show material for which they were not authorized to use. And as a result of the firestorm of legal activities, ILDA itself has taken up an official policy on Intellectual Property. You can read it here:
http://www.laserist.org/intellectual-property.htm

In any event, it should be obvious that ILDA is the best format to use for "data interchange" purposes. After all, that's what it was made for, and that's why it is called the ILDA Data Interchange File Format.

I hope that everyone will cooperate in keeping intellectual property infringement to a minimum, and part of this cooperation comes from only using public, documented formats such as ILDA.

Best regards,

William Benner

[carmangary]

Cool with me. I didn't really feel like adding another parser to my stuff anyway.

[carmangary]

Removed. No longer supported.

[cruch]

Whyyyyyyyyyy?????!!!

[carmangary]

Bigger and better things are coming.

[Gento]

A new version of the Laserfileplayer.

Download : www.Ilda.de

Grüße Gento

[-bart-]

Great little program.

I'm still look for a tool such as yours that can open ilda files by default, so double-clicking an ilda-file should open the player displaying that animation.
Just like .txt files are opened in notepad.

Maybe a future-feature ?

[neutrino]

Hey Bart,

Cant you assign this in windows. You select the file type and tell windows what application to open. I think you open explorer then goto the 'tools' menu option and select 'folder options' then select the 'file types' tab. You can then add an .ild file type and app.

The other way I think you could do it tis to right click a .ild file and select 'open with' choose the appliction you which to use. Check the checkbox for always use this application , click ok.

Should work, I might be wrong though (I often am ).

Cheers
Rich