Sample metal band logo .ild files...

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Yeah, I have some Amebix here... At my music magazine Vibrations Of Doom... (get it?) I have a shrine to 80's metal... Lots of rare 80's titles you can listen to in their entirety. Of course, I'm still using the RealAudio format, due to file space restrictions, but I've tweaked the codecs and upgraded the quality so they sound better... But I really dig Norwegian black metal as well... Venom kinda brought the punks and the metalheads together didn't they! Ah, the 80's... Great times for metal...

Oh yeah and as for Venom, it's the same U.K. band...

[VibrationsOfDoom]

ildsos will allow you to save different ild version files. it also does a very good job of going from svg/dxf to ilda.

Any idea how to get ILD SOS? From what I've been hearing on the forums, the guy is incredibly hard to reach, and doesn't always respond to people's buy requests... Is the software easy to use?

Frankly, if I could afford it, I'd definitely buy Pangolin's software... Someone chime in if they have ILD SOS and tell us how it is... Especially working with .bmp images and stuff

[swamidog]

it can be ordered here: http://hacylon.case.edu/ebay/laser_diode/ILD_SOS.php

i used it on the graphics in this show: http://youtu.be/eqqBG-F0BWQ

Any idea how to get ILD SOS? From what I've been hearing on the forums, the guy is incredibly hard to reach, and doesn't always respond to people's buy requests... Is the software easy to use?

Frankly, if I could afford it, I'd definitely buy Pangolin's software... Someone chime in if they have ILD SOS and tell us how it is... Especially working with .bmp images and stuff

[The_Doctor]

Yeah, I have some Amebix here... At my music magazine Vibrations Of Doom... (get it?)

Not specifically. Good name though, a sort of Quatermass/Lovecraftian aspect to it.

I have a shrine to 80's metal... Lots of rare 80's titles you can listen to in their entirety. Of course, I'm still using the RealAudio format, due to file space restrictions, but I've tweaked the codecs and upgraded the quality so they sound better... But I really dig Norwegian black metal as well... Venom kinda brought the punks and the metalheads together didn't they! Ah, the 80's... Great times for metal...

Oh yeah and as for Venom, it's the same U.K. band...

You're doing ok if you got RA to sound any good. Foul format! There was a guy on the Napigator forum several years ago called 'ungrateful' who did a streaming radio broadcast. I can't remember what he used but it was some variant of LAME encoded MP3 I think. It was small, but had the mix of strong bass and clean HF that metal sorely needs. If I ever get lucky and remember, or find some saved file explaining any of it, I'll post it. Can't help with the ILDSOS thing, I'm just watching and learning here on that one..

[VibrationsOfDoom]

You're doing ok if you got RA to sound any good. Foul format! There was a guy on the Napigator forum several years ago called 'ungrateful' who did a streaming radio broadcast. I can't remember what he used but it was some variant of LAME encoded MP3 I think. It was small, but had the mix of strong bass and clean HF that metal sorely needs. If I ever get lucky and remember, or find some saved file explaining any of it, I'll post it. Can't help with the ILDSOS thing, I'm just watching and learning here on that one..

RealAudio actually had preliminary codecs for high end bandwidth in their early encoders... Now that high end bandwidth is a lot more doable as opposed to 10 years ago, the codecs are easier to work with, and still give better file size compression than MP3. The soundfiles section of the magazine utilizes the highest quality streaming RealAudio that you can make, while the classic albums archives uses the next step down (hey, there's over 1500 titles to listen to in their entirety, and with me re-encoding all the earlier titles, that's a LOT of music and a LOT of file space...)

Here's an example: In MP3 format, a 3:03 file is 3,051,790 bytes... In RealAudio, a 3:41 song is 1,108,964 bytes... Here's where it gets interesting...

In RealAudio, a 5:02 song is 1,514,560!! So not much more for an increase in time... The compression is pretty good... Now keep in mind, this is for the next highest quality RealAudio codec, which compresses and gives 40.0.kbps... The highest quality codecs give 80kbps and double the filesize (roughly). So that 5:02 song is a mere 3 megs! Still better compression that 128k MP3 but smaller file size... And it sounds good too!

Plus, and I have it on good authority from a music lawyer, MP3 files are illegal, whereas RealAudio is NOT... In certain instances, of course... No one's going to get upset over streaming a band like Westfalen over the net, whereas if you're streaming a Madonna or god forbid, a Gwen Stefani song, someone's gonna step in and make a federal case out of it...

[The_Doctor]

Good point. I think the LAME code was based on a research tool, not for commercial use. There are exception, the BBC uses MP3 for podcasts. But I guess they have to pay Fraunhofer for the Right Royal Privilege..

I'm not sure what the legal status is for WAVpack but if it's cheaply legal and bandwidth is less of a problem it might help. Just noise shaping, so no great risk of making psychoacoustics that some people can't stand while others hear no fault. And a hybrid mode that does lossless archiving while allowing you to specify the size and quality compromise of the lossy part for more dense archiving or transmission. To be honest I have no idea if it's viable as a streaming format but for local audio filing I love it. I don't know how small it will safely go but for midrange MP3 standards it's a contender.

It may also be that no-one on Napigator ever gave much time to explore RA. Could have been a victim of the lousy encodings usually made. The BBC used it a lot, badly.

[james]

You make your vector art into an ILDA format 0 file by making sure the palette (of each frame) is set to the default one of 63 colors and making sure some or all of the vector art (of each frame) is in 3D space. If you have a 2D frame you can make it 3D by moving the whole thing away from the origin in the Z axis.

http://laserboy.org/forum/index.php?topic=551.0

James.

[VibrationsOfDoom]

Okay, so I'm playing around with the .bmp 2 .ild converter... I love the optimization routines in laser boy to minimize the points... I came up with these two drawings today...

They look good! I thought the Viking Ship would be the easiest to "optimize," though they still have over 10,000 points apiece... I'm using the quick optimization route "6vOqT^O" That I read about in another part of the forum... All goes well, but they STILL save in ILD format 1... So I saw about the 3d thing, not sure how to convert from 2d to 3d EXACTLY, and I can't seem to find the info on it anywhere else in the forum... Still playing around with the Laser Boy but this is still beyond me...

[james]

Probably the best way to go at this is to describe the view keys and the view menu.

If you look at menu v you will see tables of keys that effect your view of the art.

The digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 all orbit the "camera" around the art. For each key hit of 1, 2, 3 or 4, the camera orbits in some number of degrees around each axis or all three axis. The number of degrees of rotation is set in the [Tab] menu, option a. The shift key plus 1, 2, 3 or 4 rotates in the opposite direction.

The keys 5, 6, & 7 snap to the cardinal views of front, side and top of the 3D cube of space. Shift plus 5, 6 & 7 snap to the logical opposites of back, other side and bottom views.

The 8 key is like the 4 key but it also advances the frame. So you can press and hold it to see an animation in full rotation. Shift 8 does this in reverse.

The q, w, e & r keys, right below 1, 2, 3, 4, pan the camera left-right, up-down, both-at-the-same-time and return to center. Shift on q, w & e pans in the opposite direction. The amount of pan motion per key hit is in some number of points, set in menu [Tab] option 0 (digit zero). Points are relative to the signed 16-bit number space in which this vector art exists. So from one side of the 3D cube of space to the other, along any of the cardinal axis, there are 65535 points.

The keys a, s, d & f, right below q, w, e, r zoom the camera. The a key stretches the X axis; the s key Y and the d key does both. Shift plus key shrinks them. The f key returns the camera zoom to normal; a factor of 1.0. Option b in the [Tab] menu determines the percentage of zoom per key tap.

The one thing you might notice is that pan and zoom have nothing to do with the Z axis. That is because these controls effect the way the art is displayed on the screen. The screen simply has no Z axis. It is important to understand that none of the keys described above have any effect on the numerical values that define the art. They only effect the way the art is displayed on the (2D) screen.

You can however impose the current view on the art itself so that what you see is actually what is stored in the frame data.

A big issue here is that the view of the art must all fit inside of the 3D cube of numerically defined space. Note that it is very easy to set the view so that this is not the case.

If any of the art, in a non standard view, is outside of the defined 3D space, trying to apply the view simply will not work. LaserBoy will not remove or change the coordinate values of any vertices in the frame. It just won't do anything.

It's also important to think about applying the effects of rotation, pan and zoom individually. Don't try to do all of them in the same step.

The "current view" displayed in menu v shows the rotational angle on each axis, the offset and the scale that the display math is using to make the 2D raster picture on the screen from the 3D vector art in the RAM.

Below that are shown the letter options for applying these factors to the art itself. Once the factors are applied to the art they are set back to normal so that you can see the art as it really is; from the front of space with no pan or zoom. Lower case letters o, t & g apply the view to the current frame only. Upper case applies the view to the whole frame set. If any of the frames in the set do not fit inside the defined cube of space, only those frames will be left unaltered.

So.......

If your objective is to convert a 2D drawing into 3D, first you need to know that the only thing that differentiates 2D from 3D is that in a 2D frame all the Z coordinates for every vertex in the frame have a value of zero. So if you move the 2D image away from the Z axis origin, either forward or backward in the cube, a 2D frame meets the criteria for being stored as a 3D frame.

But, as was mentioned above, pan has no effect in Z. So first you need to orbit the camera to the side of space (the 6 key). If your frame really is 2D this will display the frame as nothing but a vertical line, possibly of different colors, at the origin of space. Apply this rotation to the art (the o key). Then pan the camera left or right to move the view away from the origin of space (the q key). Apply this offset (the t key). Finally view the art from the opposite side applied in the first step to see it from what you want to be the front (the ^ key) and apply this rotation to the art (the o key).

Once you're done with this you can press and hold digit 4 to spin the camera around and verify that the art is no longer on the plane associated with zero Z.

In menu u you can turn on and off some visual elements that enhance the display on the screen. The fixed bounds and origin in conjunction with the floating bounds and axis makes all of this make a lot more sense visually.

All of the listed keys in the view menu work in the main menu except for the keys that apply the view to the art. Those only work when you are in menu v.

The number keys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 work the same way in menus k and l (L) to enhance the ability to draw and manipulate vector art in 3D space; again, only effecting the way the art is displayed on the 2D computer screen.

James.

[james]

Once you get over the "weirdness" and take the time to learn the ins and outs of LaserBoy, you will find you can literally do "Frame Surgery" with it!

James.