New format for laser shows - time to upgrade the show production

[dchammonds]

does any laser show creation software have wave *export* capability?

Apparently, you've never seen LWave- it's been out there a long time. Back in 04-05, James and I were generating multi channel waves long before I
knew or cared about ILDA and I helped him out with a correction amp design for a modified soundcard. My app was an abstract signal generator that
maintains a constant FPS. With his projector experience, James taught me about blank timing adjustment as well as scanner velocity limitations.
James' wave material did not maintain a constant FPS, so I wanted a way to detect end of frame marks as well as compensation for blank timings so
I could view his material correctly in my app and vise versa. We worked together on a way to hide subcode in the wave without wrecking anything.


It later became LaserBoy this, LaserBoy that. I felt a little awkward at my first SELEM in 08 when I saw others peddling correction amp boards
that looked mighty familiar. I never bothered looking into ILDA until sometime later thanks to Gary.

[james]

i'm going to start calling you "dodge and deflect".

show me a wave player than can do *real time* geometric correction, arbitrary and multiple safety zones, color linearity envelopes, color timing adjustments, scanning optimization, etc...

Are you saying that can't be done?

And what does that have to do with a storage and transport file format?

ILDA can't do any of that. The software that displays it does all that.

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[swamidog]

no... i'm saying it hasn't been done because the industry at large knows that wave files are stupid for this application and haven't bothered to waste their time coding to support these playback features.

i didn't say ILDA can do that. why are you confusing a file format with a playback / editor application? oh right, you're just trying to cloud the issue and avoid actual dialog.

Are you saying that can't be done?

[james]

no... i'm saying it hasn't been done because the industry at large knows that wave files are stupid for this application and haven't bothered to waste their time coding to support these playback features.

You haven't given any reason why they are "stupid" other than the "industry" does't use them.

Like I said, you don't like it because it's not ilda; but not for any technical reason or understanding.


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[absolom7691]

Apparently, you've never seen LWave- it's been out there a long time. Back in 04-05, James and I were generating multi channel waves long before I
knew or cared about ILDA and I helped him out with a correction amp design for a modified soundcard. My app was an abstract signal generator that
maintains a constant FPS. With his projector experience, James taught me about blank timing adjustment as well as scanner velocity limitations.
James' wave material did not maintain a constant FPS, so I wanted a way to detect end of frame marks as well as compensation for blank timings so
I could view his material correctly in my app and vise versa. We worked together on a way to hide subcode in the wave without wrecking anything.


It later became LaserBoy this, LaserBoy that. I felt a little awkward at my first SELEM in 08 when I saw others peddling correction amp boards
that looked mighty familiar. I never bothered looking into ILDA until sometime later thanks to Gary.

I will admit that I have not looked into LWave. I have seen it mentioned here before, though. My major thing here is not to belittle anyone's work, especially when that work can benefit, and has benefitted users. I was one of them. When I first got back into lasers, it was still prohibitively expensive. LaserBoy and Spaghetti (at the time) were both free. I know James thinks LB easy to use, just a few keystrokes, but I found it clunky and very difficult to do what I needed. As soon as I could afford it, I bought Pangolin LD2K. It was an incredible improvement and way easier to use. Now, caveat, anyone who has used LD2K knows, it is NOT easy to use so, that should say something about LaserBoy. Now, the argument is always, "You didn't spend enough time to learn the Ins and Outs of LB and waves". Okay fair but I didn't want to. I wanted something that wasn't so damn difficult to use. Since few people here used LaserBoy extensively (other than converting dfx files to, surprise, ild) the resources were limited. Once I bought an FB3 and then later Beyond, my world opened up. There is so much I can do with Beyond. I can't save and share any of my shows because my shows, though using recorded elements, are still played live and manipulated live. LaserBoy and Waves can't even come close to touching what I can achieve with Beyond.

Now, I know, the argument here is ild vs wav so let me get back to that. If I had stuck with LB and wav files, only playing them through multi-channel media players, I would still be stuck, never discovering the vast universe of options and art creation available with another software. The biggest thing is, vehemently pushing wav narrows people to a small and isolated group. A community so small that progression is very slow. ild isn't the best. I don't even save my shows in ild format (i can't) but ild is so widely used, anyone can help anyone. I get it, wav can store more data and store it cleanly and everything makes more sense but the industry moves at what is needed. So far, people aren't hitting those limitations. Will they, maybe, nothing is future proof but software designers are not going to invest man-hours of money into developing software around a format that an extremely small minority of people use and one that no one (yet) needs. Does ild work? yes. Does it work well? yes. Has it limited users at all? Most likely not.

James is an extremely intelligent person and a very creative one, to boot. The problem comes in when he "offers" his options and then someone offers something else that might be a little easier to use to achieve similar results, this argument starts up. "Whatever ild can do, wav can to better. Wav can do anything better than ild!" So, I have a strong suspicion this is why other people are starting to get salty. It's one of my biggest beefs. If you offer something, let other people offer, too.

[james]

When did I ever say that if you use wav or more precisely my application that you are not allowed to use anything else?

Lots of people started out as you did with an audio dac. That makes the barrier of entry almost nothing as far as the control and content creation is concerned. That's a gateway to the harder stuff.

And it's still interoperable with the commercial stuff.


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[swamidog]

you continue to be wrong.

You haven't given any reason why they are "stupid" other than the "industry" does't use them.

Like I said, you don't like it because it's not ilda; but not for any technical reason or understanding.


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[absolom7691]

When did I ever say that if you use wav or more precisely my application that you are not allowed to use anything else?

Straw man. I never said you did any such thing. You push your software hard. The main selling point is that it's free, okay. You argue that the learning curve isn't steep, that you can save and play wavs over a modified and corrected sound card output... win win win. The problem is, it isn't easy. For some, even tapping into the outputs of a sound card might be a little beyond people's skill level. Yes, you sell modified amp kits, you also sell completed ones but they still need to be tuned to get the dc offset correct. Then they have to start learning the software. Sure, you're available for questions and help. You even helped me out over the phone. But still, that's an awful lot of time before projecting the first image or beam. It's just a lot for people looking for plug-n-play. Once they get all that done, now try finding wavs of laser clipart... Oh, it's all in ild format. Still though, you push and try to convince people to use your methods.

Lots of people started out as you did with an audio dac. That makes the barrier of entry almost nothing as far as the control and content creation is concerned. That's a gateway to the harder stuff.

Very true and I will never deny that, however, I just wish I had started out with the harder stuff to begin with. I quit lasers for a year or so before I bought Pangolin. I even quit using Pangolin for a bit because LD2K was not easy to use. I used LSX for a bit. Then Beyond released. That was all she wrote. I have always told people this, you'll regret going cheap. Sure, this isn't a cheap hobby but when you spend money on the cheap shit, you will regret it when you buy what was recommended in the first place. LB is free but cost me a lot of time and almost my interest in the hobby. My thoughts when I used LB were, "Lasers can't be this difficult, right?" Thank the maker for Spaghetti and free ild content from the FTP server. That kept flicker of interest alive. I simply found wav to be an unnecessary step which then rendered LB obsolete for me. I create really complex stuff now and very few keystrokes are needed.


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[james]

I never said my app was easy to learn. It's not. It doesn't candy coat anything. I made a real effort to make it as technically accurate as possible in the menus and documentation. It's certainly not for everyone. And wav might not be your favorite storage and transport format. But the whole world of possibilities with regard to laser display would be just that much wider if everyone knew that all of it is within the signal culture and all that is digital is in the domain of digital audio.

As difficult as it was for you to learn and use my application, I bet you had a bunch of ah-ha! moments that are now what you call common sense.

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[laserist]

"Lasers can't be this difficult, right?"

This is an incredibly good point. It's almost exactly what the first rule of user interface design illustrates. The first rule: Minimization of Astonishment. Your user shouldn't ask, "Why the hell did they do it this way!" Now it's one thing when the answer is, "This way is more efficient and it's designed for productivity. On the other hand when the answer is, "It's free! Don't complain!" that might be bad design, or just inept design. If you find yourself responding to questions with hasty rationalizations - maybe you violated the first rule.