Need the ability to merge in A3d elements in Patch without wiping out addresses and vice versa

What you all accomplished with A3d was herculean and I applaud you for that and I can’t wait to use it on my first show next month. Speaking of which…

I only recently discovered the limited ability I have to merge in A3d fixture data (xyz, orientation, edge, color, gobo etc). Right now Patch is all or nothing. At least for me, (but I suspect many others), that’s going to be a significant roadblock in my eagerness to incorporate A3d into my workflow. As a theatre designer, my time in the theatre is often very short and very expensive. That’s why I come in on day 1 with magic sheets made, groups ready to go, palettes pre-mixed, etc. And usually in those situations the show has already been patched, or more likely, is in the process of being patched often right up to, and including, during the focus. (so getting a complete patch file in advance is not really a great option) I desperately need a way to be able to merge in all the A3d fixture data without wiping out addresses that already exist.

Right now the workaround is to import an .a3d file, but there is still a great deal of work that may need to be done after that. I don’t use any of the focus features in VW (and don’t see myself doing that anytime soon) so I’ll need to focus all my conventionals in patch, as well set beam softness, set my “show beam” checkboxes, and other settings. If I can’t do any of that until I’ve already arrived at the theatre, that’s a big time problem. Sometimes the tech may start very soon after the focus. There just isn’t necessarily the time to do all that A3d work on site. (especially because there likely WILL be A3d work that can ONLY be done on site, like FPE, or dealing with p/t inversion issues, etc so I need to spend the little time I may have doing that stuff.)

As you look towards the improvements you want to integrate into the next update, which I’m sure is a list a mile long, I would strongly encourage making this a high priority. A3d is super powerful, but like magic sheets, it takes a lot of front end time to make it a usable tool. Until the Patch merge becomes more granular, I can see people just not having the time to really use A3d as they would like.

I know I'm not the first one to bring this up, but I think it's really important so the more voices the better.

thanks,
Cory

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  • I'd like to second this as a feature request.  I built several virtual venues with default addresses for channels, but when bringing that file into the actual venue and attempting to repatch the fixtures from virtual addresses to real addresses, as Cory says, position, beam and all the rest are lost.

    I see a couple possible ways of moving this forward-

    Provide for a "Address Copy/Move To by Part".  So that an existing setup a3d fixture could be copy/moved from its existing part to a new part including position info.  At the moment if you Copy a channel to a new channel the position info etc. does not follow the copy.

    Provide for a "Merge Address Only" This would allow bringing a 'real' patch into an esf3d show while maintaining position, etc. info of the channel/fixture.

    My workaround for this at the moment goes something like this-

    In the virtual show with the A3d fixtures setup but has the wrong address patch-

    Patch>Channel @ Enter (or Channel 1 thru 500 @ Enter)

    Clears the address but not the position info, then a new Channel @ Address can be input.  This is a one-by-one process as far as I can see.

    Address Copy/Move does hold the position info, but still has the channel associated and ends up not being much help.

  • Has there been any progress here? This seems extremely important to make Augment3d useful for working designers who don't have venue's patch info.

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