High End Systems fixture library entries

Tim

As this has been quiet, I wanted to check and see how things were going.  It looks like some of the commentary has helped sort some of the issues, but I want to clear up any others that are outstanding.  The following is not in any particular order and if there is more you need please do not hesitate to contact me.

One of the underlying goals of the libraries was to create a mechanism for normalising the user experience with moving lights to help reduce the learning curve on any given fixture.  As I am sure you appreciate, each moving light manufacturer has their own theory of control and specific implementation.  We want to expose fixtures as people think about the functions.  This manifests in the way data is displayed and controlled.  Pan and Tilt for example display in degrees while Gobo functins appear in text such as Spin or Rotate. In order to achieve this fully, each fixture in the library has been characterized fully.  That amount of data precludes the personalities from being a simple ASCII file any longer.

The goal for the Fixture Editor was to provide a mechanism to create a simple fixture or tweak an existing one for your need.  In the coming release, Version 1.5, we have added the ability to edit control functions, including the multi-step functions (macros) for lamp control operations.  This has been much commented on by our users.  There will continue to be some parameters that are non-editable.  In some cases this will be a mode control extrapolated from aDMX ranging of a given parameter. 

In some cases parameters are added for normalization.  In particular, any time we encounter the combination of RGB or CMY, the library adds Hue, Saturation, and Brightness (intensity) to the color field.  This way all of the devices in the rig can be mixed in a common color space.  Because of this you can select multiple types of moving lights and LED fixtures and assign them to the closest possible match of R80 in front of a 3200K tungsten source.

For the Intellabeam 11 Channel personality, I did some research today.  It appears this was never a prt of the base family and has not been requested for the desk.  I was actually fairly surprised to find this.  I have entered a request for this fixture to be included in 1.5.  If  waiting is an issue, please contact me directly so we can discuss your needs.

I have also spent a good bit of time looking at the X-Spot personality.  I have been through the manual and do not see any reference to a Framing option or the control for said.  A prowl through the High End website did not yield any answers either.  We can create a personality for your fixture, but would need the specifics.  I will be contacting High End to get more detail on this unless you have the data close to hand.

Your observations on the wheels are excellent and very accurate.  I cannot answer your question as to why the wheels are behaving differently.  I agree that all three should present identically.  I will be going through the source code of the library looking for an answer.  Once I find it I will let you know and if we find a defect with the library, we wil aim to correct in 1.5.

Please feel free to contact me with any other concerns or comments,

j

Tim

As this has been quiet, I wanted to check and see how things were going.  It looks like some of the commentary has helped sort some of the issues, but I want to clear up any others that are outstanding.  The following is not in any particular order and if there is more you need please do not hesitate to contact me.

One of the underlying goals of the libraries was to create a mechanism for normalising the user experience with moving lights to help reduce the learning curve on any given fixture.  As I am sure you appreciate, each moving light manufacturer has their own theory of control and specific implementation.  We want to expose fixtures as people think about the functions.  This manifests in the way data is displayed and controlled.  Pan and Tilt for example display in degrees while Gobo functins appear in text such as Spin or Rotate. In order to achieve this fully, each fixture in the library has been characterized fully.  That amount of data precludes the personalities from being a simple ASCII file any longer.

The goal for the Fixture Editor was to provide a mechanism to create a simple fixture or tweak an existing one for your need.  In the coming release, Version 1.5, we have added the ability to edit control functions, including the multi-step functions (macros) for lamp control operations.  This has been much commented on by our users.  There will continue to be some parameters that are non-editable.  In some cases this will be a mode control extrapolated from aDMX ranging of a given parameter. 

In some cases parameters are added for normalization.  In particular, any time we encounter the combination of RGB or CMY, the library adds Hue, Saturation, and Brightness (intensity) to the color field.  This way all of the devices in the rig can be mixed in a common color space.  Because of this you can select multiple types of moving lights and LED fixtures and assign them to the closest possible match of R80 in front of a 3200K tungsten source.

For the Intellabeam 11 Channel personality, I did some research today.  It appears this was never a prt of the base family and has not been requested for the desk.  I was actually fairly surprised to find this.  I have entered a request for this fixture to be included in 1.5.  If  waiting is an issue, please contact me directly so we can discuss your needs.

I have also spent a good bit of time looking at the X-Spot personality.  I have been through the manual and do not see any reference to a Framing option or the control for said.  A prowl through the High End website did not yield any answers either.  We can create a personality for your fixture, but would need the specifics.  I will be contacting High End to get more detail on this unless you have the data close to hand.

Your observations on the wheels are excellent and very accurate.  I cannot answer your question as to why the wheels are behaving differently.  I agree that all three should present identically.  I will be going through the source code of the library looking for an answer.  Once I find it I will let you know and if we find a defect with the library, we wil aim to correct in 1.5.

Please feel free to contact me with any other concerns or comments,

j

In no particular order...

The preferred mode for the Intellabeam 700HX fixture is 13ch. extended DMX mode, not 11 channels.  This has matched the WholeHogII library since at least 1999.

I think everyone can appreciate the difficulty in writing real-world values for fixture personalities, but thank you for the condescension.  I'm still waiting to see a list of fixtures and modes that come included with Eos/Ion, and which personalities are available for download.

Recently, on the LightNetwork forum, Brad Schiller and Scott Blair defended Barco's position of not releasing their fixtures' DMX protocols to the general public.  Agree or disagree, it made for an interesting read.

Perhaps it's erroneous, but a perception exists that writing one's own, or obtaining a pre-written, fixture personality is difficult.  ETC needs to work to change either the perception or the fact, whichever applies.

Derek

I am sorry you read this as condescending.  That was not my intent.  I was trying to answer the questions posed.  I am not a programmer and am trying to start a dialogue on this.  I understand the perception and would very much like to correct it.  I appreciate any commentary that will help us towards that. So to answer as best I can:

The IBeam 13 Channel - I spent some time on the web looking for manuals and/or DMX charts and the closest I found was a description of 11/12 channel DMX mode in the LCD Controller manual.  As I said in my earlier post, I will be getting touch with High End soon.  I will add this to the list.

Included fixtures - If you have installed Eos Offline 1.4.5, a folder called Documentation will be added.  In that folder is a file called FixtureReleaseNotes.pdf. That contains a list of the fixtures and modes included with the release.  If you do not have Offline I will be happy to email you (in the all of you reading this kind of way) the file.

I am not sure what you mean by persoanlaities available for download/  Would this be fixtures added since release?

I have not been keeping up with the LN as of late but I will take a look for that thread..

Thank you,

j

John -

I have all the X-Spot and I-Beam 13 channel documents back at the office, and will send them along as soon as I get back.  On the HES site, the 13 channel personality was definited in a "extended DMX" option document, since it was not in the initial fixture release.  You will also not see it in the docs for the High End controller, since those are not DMX based - they ran the Lightwave Research protocol.

X-Frame is 37 channels, and basically, gobo wheel two and the iris/FX module go away, and you add a framing module, which has, IIRC, something like 13 parameters - two each for four shutters, shutter rotate, and iris and iris mode . . . .

I understand the desire to "normalize" the control across brands, but the inconsistencies are what are killing me.  Also, if a fixture editor can't do *EVERYTHING*, then I consider it broken.  A document on how to generate ASCII uploadable definitions would be very helpful as well, as that would allow the end user to circumvent the (at least to me) insanely frustrating fixture profile editor on the Ion . . . .

Do you have an e-mail I should send to, or just post this stuff here?

- Tim

Tim

My email is john (dot) heller (at) etcconnect.com.  I will speak with some folks and see if we can improve the docs to get people through this easily.

Thanks again,

j

John -

I sent the docs on the X-Spot Framing as well as Lithomotion options, as well as the detailed docs on Intellabeam 13 channel to your e-mail a few moments ago - please check and verify receipt!

- Tim

Tim

Got 'em all and they look good.

Thanks much

j

derekleffew said:

Recently, on the LightNetwork forum, Brad Schiller and Scott Blair defended Barco's position of not releasing their fixtures' DMX protocols to the general public.  Agree or disagree, it made for an interesting read.

Derek,

Do you have a link to this discussion?  I searched for it but couldn't find it in the last month's postings.  It seems like it would be counterproductive for a company to not release the DMX protocol for their fixtures. High End has always published that information in the past.

-Todd

The thread is titled "Showgun DMX Protocol" and was started 18 Feb.

derekleffew said:

The thread is titled "Showgun DMX Protocol" and was started 18 Feb.

Derek-

Thanks - I found it.  Interesting reading and I can see both sides of the issue, but am not leaning one way or the other until I think about it a bit more.  I haven't played with the newer High End fixtures, so I had not noticed that they had changed their policies.

I did have trouble with the EOS profile for the Showgun when we had some in for an event, but that was over a year ago and we haven't used any since then, so I'm not sure if that profile has been sorted out.  If I remember correctly, I couldn't get the LED ring to respond.  At the time it wasn't a major issue, so I didn't pursue it.

-Todd

As a quick followup to this post, as of 1.9.6, the lamp controls for X-Spot are still incorrect.  Fortunately, with the addition of lamp control editing to the patch, they were fixable . . .

Basically, you forgot to take the shutter (channel 6) to closed (dmx 0) in order to enable the control channel.  Add a level of 6 @ 0 to all the entries, and they all work correctly.  Otherwise, you need to manually close the shutter first, or nothing works, which pretty much destroys the purpose of lamp controls . . .

- Tim

Tim, thanks.  Will have our test group look into this issue.

a

Thanks.  I have verified that what I have done works on the live fixtures, and the manual is clear in the DMX documentation of the two channel requirement.  If you just look at the verbage, I don't think there is any note in the control channel section that the shutter close is required to enable, but it is in the DMX chart  . . . perhaps that is what someone tripped over.

At any rate, now that we can edit lamp controls, I finally have full function, so this isn't as much of a priority (it was a major pain having to pull DMX and wait for things to shutdown on timeout) and we have not yet gotten 1.9.8 loaded, but I doubt there will be a difference there . . .

Since I was the one who sent the X-Spot manual to John Hessler on this initially, I have also e-mailed him directly with these details.

- Tim