OK. I have a lot more to say. But this is cool. I am going to bed now. Thank you very much Patrick! You are a real gentleman.
James.
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
OK. I have a lot more to say. But this is cool. I am going to bed now. Thank you very much Patrick! You are a real gentleman.
James.
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
You know, I am done with you. I'll be glad when you disappear. I enjoyed this forum before you came along.Originally Posted by James Lehman
Have another drink, dude.
Then go to sleep!
James.
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
It looks like the best answer to the question of why format 3 was dumped and formats 4 & 5 have come forward as a "better" choice is the issue of "streaming".
As you might have guessed, I have a LOT to say about that too!
I have been blogging about LaserBoy and my interpretation of the ILDA file format since some time in 2004. Over these years I have been reminded several times...
"The ILDA standard is not meant to be the standard for internal data representation within a program. It is also not intended as the native file format for a laser software package. The ILDA standard is meant as a frame-interchange format to get point data made by system A, into a different system B."
Clearly, this statement says that the ILDA file format is an archive. It is to have no other purpose than to store a set of laser vector art frames.
"Streaming" is a very specific use of data that goes well beyond archiving.
A package of sheet music is an archive of a song. That is very different than a digital recording of the song.
The ILDA file format was not designed to be streamed. That fact is obvious. It is a format of consecutive chunks, each with a header and a data section. These chunks were originally designed to be interdependent; meaning the status of one chunk might apply to one or many chunks that follow it. A file reader would clearly have to keep flip-flopping between finding headers and reading differently formatted data. By definition, this is NOT streaming.
Format 3 should have been adopted as a means of storing 24 bit color information for vector sets that contain more than 256 uniquely colored vertices. The 24 bit color values in format 3 are stored in the same exact order as the vertices that would follow in a format 0 or 1.
Formats 4 & 5 are derived by combining the data that might be found in consecutive formats 3 & 0 or formats 3 & 1.
This fact alone, indicates that format 3 should exists. It was used to derive the useless formats 4 & 5!
By combining these formats together to form two more formats that are in no way complimentary or compatible with the previous four, we inherit all of the limitations of the original ILDA file format and add nothing in the way of new capabilities.
By giving format 4 or 5 files the same extension ".ild" as any of the original ILDA files would have, we have guaranteed that these files will fail with no obvious reason in any older laser show software that doesn't know format 4 & 5.
And we are not one bit closer to a true streaming file format.
The real answer to streaming laser data was made very obvious to me the first time I ever worked with any of this stuff. The final step of making the laser show "First Night Akron 2004" was to play the whole show from a QM-32 and record its analog signal outputs on separate tracks of a DC modified ADAT machine. This process eliminates the need for a computer and a proprietary laser control card. Put the tape in the ADAT. Press "Play" and you have a stream of both separate analog signals that directly control the laser projector AND a single, optical, multi-channel, multiplexed 16 bit linear digital PCM stream.
If you save some or all of this stream on a hard drive and put a standard header in front of it that defines its layout, it becomes a wave file.
Let me make this perfectly clear...
The wave file format IS a "streaming" file format because it has one-and-only-one header that defines the structure of all of the data that follows. No further interpretation or computation of that data is necessary to make use of it. You can start it, stop it, go to any location within that data and as long as you know the byte position, relative to the beginning of the data you can stream it, from there. It is no different than playing a CD or an ADAT tape! Now that is a "streaming" file format!
There have been millions of engineering man hours dedicated to the use of multiplexed, 16-bit, linear PCM data. The concepts have completely saturated the entire computer science industry. The infrastructure of support for the use of multiplexed, 16-bit, linear PCM data has been well established, redundantly, from the extra pins on the CPU for MMX and other large integer streaming technologies, to the core of every modern OS kernel, through the drivers to the GUIs, right out to the plethora of multi channel audio devices that convert these fundamental streams into analog signals. There are hundreds of applications and related computer projects designed specifically to work with multiplexed, 16-bit, linear PCM data. There are thousands of people well versed in the math of digital signal processing.
The Microsoft RIFF WAVE File Format was specifically designed to be completely amorphous and reconfigurable as defined in a well designed header with a REAL data pointer!
In other words... One can define ANY reasonable layout of multiple tracks or channels of synchronous information. Choose the bit resolution that is necessary to contain the highest resolution of any of the data streams (16-bits for X and Y). Up-cast the lesser resolutions to conform (8-bit unsigned colors get promoted to 16-bit signed numbers) and define as many tracks as one needs for whatever information one wants to use!
This scenario can be used to STORE AND STREAM anything you might want to send to a laser projector (or save for later reverse engineering); X, Y, Z, R, G, B, TTL, yellow, violet, beam brush, ANYTHING! And it can do it in a way that could represent everything from totally non-temporal, random laser doodles, to point-stripped color vector data, all the way up to fully optimized, color-to-scanner-time-aligned, clocked DAC samples that directly drive the laser projector in real time!
I'm not just saying all of this because LaserBoy already does it.
LaserBoy already does all of this because it is the truth and THE WAY to do it!
James.
EDIT: Correction: LaserBoy doesn't do "all" of this. It does a predefined set of six signal tracks. I don't believe in putting design too far ahead of implementation. I have not worked with yellow or violet yet and I have no way to do beam brush. My friend Dean C. Hammonds has worked with waves with Z information. I have not.
Last edited by James Lehman; 10-03-2008 at 21:10.
Senior Member
James, I am really amazed you haven't gotten over this yet. And I am also amazed that you refuse to acknowledge history:
There are a number of reasons why Format 4/5 are better than Format 3. I have expressed some of them on this forum, and some of them within the Technical Committee. Streaming is but one reason, and arguably the least important reason, but a reason (or at least a benefit) nevertheless.
James, I keep telling you that Format 4 and 5 PRE-DATED!! Format 3, and I can prove it. But does anybody really want me to pull out more archived emails just to prove my point again and again?
James, ILDA has spoken. The matter has been settled. There's no sense in crying over spilt milk... Format 3 is dead. And even if it was kept alive, it would have been kept alive in a form you don't like anyway.
Best regards,
William Benner
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
Multiplexed, 16-bit, linear PCM is the "wave" of the future of laser display. It has to be.
ILDA can stick to whatever outdated nonsense they want to.
After there has been enough development in the direction of wave and streaming PCM, showing its superior flexibility and logical connection to its use to convey time synchronous, multi-channel, pseudo analog signals, it just won't matter any more. ILDA will have some catching-up to do.
James has spoken.
James.
Senior Member
Senior Member
PRICELESS!!!
(But where's the Wuhuhahahahah???)
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
If you don't think argument in a public forum about international standards has any value, I don't know what to say.
What is seriously retarded is the development and progress of new innovations in the field laser display.
Straying off into areas of judgment of other people is also retarded.
Staying on the subject and providing real evidence that your point of view is better is priceless.
Making fun of challanged people really sucks. That kid looks beautiful to me.
James.
Last edited by James Lehman; 10-04-2008 at 10:16.
Senior Member
@ bill.... WUAHAHAHAHAHA.. is that better? :-)
@ James... its not about the challenged kid, or making fun of him... its not about him and YOU know it!!! stop the shit and the shit will stop.
THIS USER WAS CLUEBYFOURED
If you don't have anything to add to this thread that is technically relevant, just stay out of it. Don't even read it.
If you really don't think the message of that picture is offensive, again, I don't know what to say.
James.
Last edited by James Lehman; 10-04-2008 at 10:25.
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