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Thread: Help with quickshow

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Syracuse, NY
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    287

    Default Help with quickshow

    I've been tinkering around creating some frames and animations in Quickshow but I've noticed that the overall output power of the laser has dropped significantly. The preprogrammed cues (hot beams, fans, etc) are significantly brighter than anything I create. I've checked the master and cue brightness settings, I've looked through projector settings and everywhere else I can think of but I can't find anywhere to increase the brightness of my custom cues. Does anyone have any suggestions? The only idea I have come up with so far is something along the lines of a beam actually being comprised of more than a single click with the freehand tool. If I use the ellipse tool to make a very small circle the beam appears brighter while still appearing more or less as a point on the projection surface. This seems silly to me though so I'm not sure if that is the actual solution or simply a way around whatever is really causing the issue. That would still leave the issue of lines. It would imply that I really need to use the rectangle tool and just make one of the axes extremely small to make the line appear brighter. Again, that seems silly to me. I'm sure I'm just missing something here so any advice would be greatly appreciated.


    Thanks,
    Luke
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Syracuse, NY
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    Default

    Here are two examples. The first picture shows the preprogrammed beam on the bottom and the beam I made on the top. The second picture shows the preprogrammed beam on the left and my beam on the right. For the life of me I can't figure this out. I did find another brightness setting in Edit Frame/Animation mode when I clicked on animation in the top toolbar but the brightness was already set at 100%.
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    LASERS!!

    1x Homemade 500mW 405nm Projector
    1x Homemade 1.2W RGB Projector
    1x Lightspace Color Ray Series 6W RGB
    2x Lightspace Venus 2W RGB

    ZPL Lighting www.zpllighting.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Netherlands
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    Default

    Probably you have too little point per frame or object. this is bad for 3 reasons
    -The laserbeam spends too much time being off traveling between the things you've drawn.
    -There is a small idle time between frames that can become significant if you have too little points (<100) per frame.
    -The efficiency of (most) dpss lasers is dependent of the duty-cycle of the input signal. For example;a laser that is off for 75% of the time (traveling between lit parts) may achieve only 50% percent of its max power at the times is should be lit.

    The frame editor is not the best place to create hot-beams and fans. You'd better teach yourself to create fans using new abstract, and beams using the quick targets (which can be enabled in the <settings> tab). Different cue types can be combined using multi cue and snapshot. Just combine using multi cue and drag the preview area to an empty cue.

    Hotbeams can be made in the frame editor.
    Hold [control] and use the freehand tool to create a hotbeam. In the <view> tab select <show point area>, now you see the point area at the bottom of your drawing area. If you double-click the beam-parts you can set the number of points per beam to adjust their relative brightness. Try to aim at 600-800 points per frame, too little you you'll get dimming, too much you'll get flicker.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Syracuse, NY
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    Default

    Thank you for the help. I have been able to get good beams by copying the beam target cues into the editor and using those. i noticed that the beams i was creating had 2 points per frame and the preprogrammed target beams have 4. I'm still working on lines though. I have had some success adding points to the lines but it is essentially just drawing more lines on top of the origial which dont always line up the best. I'm trying out the abstract editor more as well but it seems much harder to get the type of beat based cues im looking for. I'm sure theres just a bit of a learning curve to it is all. Thanks again.
    LASERS!!

    1x Homemade 500mW 405nm Projector
    1x Homemade 1.2W RGB Projector
    1x Lightspace Color Ray Series 6W RGB
    2x Lightspace Venus 2W RGB

    ZPL Lighting www.zpllighting.com

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Guildford, UK
    Posts
    165

    Default

    I use a different program but in theory points and editing should carry over.... so hope it helps

    The dwell-time of the laser is the secondary brightness variable after laser output and the rate of draw is how you can control it so a line drawn:
    X-------------------------------------------X
    appears far dimmer than:
    X---X---X---X---X---X---X---X---X---X---X
    drawing it like that also avoids the overlapping of going back and forth which sounds like the problem you were having.

    My software frame editor has an 'interpolate' function that lets you say how many points should be added along a selected path that makes this easy.

    Then you have to overlay points to get serious brightness: to make single dim points for an abstract I've had the best luck with a blank point with 2 repeats overlaid with a active point with 6 repeats; then for the bright points a blank point overlaid with three active points each with 6 repeats.

    For some reason multiplying the number of repeats together does not result in the same brightness as separate points with the same total number of repeats. I'm not entirely sure yet what it means by repeats, I'd think that was the same as more points but apparently not, either way this works for me and may work in QuickShow's editor
    Dynamics/EasyLase LC/FD820/RGB 400mW Homebrew w/EMS4ks

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
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    Netherlands
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    Default

    It's actually a pangolin forum question but I'll answer it.
    You can reduce blanking spacing and increase corner points. This will increase point count of the visible points and lower those blanked and thus increase brightness.
    Please go to your settings and take a screenshot of the following tabs:
    - Scan Rate
    - Color settings
    - Vector Display settings.

    Also note that by under scanrate by default there is a minimum points per frame settings.
    By default it's on 200 and this is to protect your laser scanners and you should never lower it as it can potentially damage laser scanners on very low pointcount frames with too little spacing.
    all minimum points are increased with blanking points. Increase the point count of the visible points in the frame in QS to at least 200.

    Last edited by masterpj; 12-19-2015 at 08:41.

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