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Thread: Pangolin QS frame editing question

  1. #1
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    Question Pangolin QS frame editing question

    I have used quick trace to scan in a logo, but it isn't exactly right (of course) and it is scanning at a very slow rate. I loaded it into the editor and it becomes quickly apparent that there are WAY MORE POINTS than necessary for the image, so it should be easy to delete a lot of the points and pick up scan speed. However, I ALSO need to MOVE some of the points to fine tune the image.

    For the life of me, I can't figure out how to drag one of the points around. I've tried the MOVE button but that seems to drag the whole image around.

    Am I missing something obvious or easy?

    I am VERY IMPRESSED with this software. I got my first projector on Monday of this week and it is Wednesday and I am scanning and editing images in QS! I am finding it very intuitive for the most part. I have a lot to learn, but I am rather amazed at how much I AM able to do right off the bat without so much as looking at a video so far. (Other than one color adjustment video one of you showed me.)

    Anyway, my main purpose is to ask the question above, but I also wanted to lavish praise on Pangolin. From someone who has never so much as fired up a projector before a few days ago, I am truly amazed at how easy it has been to get the hang of and how powerful it appears to be. I was a little hesitant to spend that much on the software and the FB3, but I am very comfortable with that decision now.

    I also want to thank Hacksaw (Len) for really holding my hand and getting me started on all of this! I also want to thank the MANY of you who have given me advice in my projector "buying experience" thread. This is a great community and I hope to be able to one day contribute even a small percentage of what I have already gotten out of it so far.

    Fire away and let me know what I am doing wrong please!

  2. #2
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    Ok, answered my own question - not real well done IMHO. But it works. You have to SELECT the point you want to move using something like the lasso tool, and THEN click the move button and you can drag it around.

    I think it would be much faster and more intuitive to be able to just click on a point and drag it around. No?

    Anyway, it is doable and that is a big help. Thanks, +1 to tsteele93 for answering my question!!!

  3. #3
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    You can click on a single point and then move it using the move tool (the 4 headed arrow).

    However, for accurate selection it can be better to use the select tool 1st (square shaped tool).

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    Ok, question to anyone looking in - maybe someone from Pangolin? Is there a place to talk about improvements to Quick Show? I have a few suggestions...

    I can offer some very hands-on advice about the frame/animation editor!

    1. Please enable CTRL-Z for undo. I tend to click, mess up, CTRL-Z and click again, hopefully in the right place. As it is, I have to click the wrong place, move the mouse all the way back up to the top of the screen and click undo, then move back to the wrong place and click again, and then back to the top to click undo. With CTRL-Z I can keep the mouse where I made the mistake, type CTRL-Z and move the mouse just a fraction from where it was to what is hopefully the right place. And besides, wikipedia says... "Control Z is one of the original "sacred" keybindings defined in the first GUI to be widely used, that of the original Macintosh"

    2. Redo? Is it possible to redo things?

    3. Text is implemented very rudimentarily. Is that a word? How about persistence? If I type BEACH and then UNDO and start over, it would be nice if BEACH was still in the text box the next time - or if there were a switch allowing that. Overall text could use a lot of work.

    4. Rotation, how about some sort of angle finder so we can see if we are 30 degrees, 45 degrees, 58.9 degrees or 90 degrees. Etc... Useful when rotating ANYTHING.

    5. SHIFT KEY held down makes a straight line... If I hold the SHIFT KEY down after clicking somewhere, then my next click will be exactly in a straight line, preferably an exactly horizontal or vertical line. So if I want to draw a horizontal line that is perfect, I click (or is it ctrl-click?) and then hold the shift key and it will lock the next click into either a horizontal line or a vertical line - depending on how I move the mouse. You might even add 30,45 and 60 if you are feeling feisty.

    Just a few thoughts after trying to trace a bitmap (unsuccessfully - I ended up with a bunch of DOTS instead of LINES. Oops. Maybe I should have been using CTRL-CLICK? I need to watch that video again...

    Just thinking out loud as I use the program. Is there a place for these kinds of requests/suggestions? If so I will move my post there... Thanks!

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post
    Ok, question to anyone looking in - maybe someone from Pangolin? Is there a place to talk about improvements to Quick Show? I have a few suggestions...

    I can offer some very hands-on advice about the frame/animation editor!

    1. Please enable CTRL-Z for undo. I tend to click, mess up, CTRL-Z and click again, hopefully in the right place. As it is, I have to click the wrong place, move the mouse all the way back up to the top of the screen and click undo, then move back to the wrong place and click again, and then back to the top to click undo. With CTRL-Z I can keep the mouse where I made the mistake, type CTRL-Z and move the mouse just a fraction from where it was to what is hopefully the right place. And besides, wikipedia says... "Control Z is one of the original "sacred" keybindings defined in the first GUI to be widely used, that of the original Macintosh"
    Alt + Backspace


    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post
    2. Redo? Is it possible to redo things?
    No

    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post
    3. Text is implemented very rudimentarily. Is that a word? How about persistence? If I type BEACH and then UNDO and start over, it would be nice if BEACH was still in the text box the next time - or if there were a switch allowing that. Overall text could use a lot of work.
    Why would text stay in the box for next time when you've deleted it?

    I'm also not sure which Text editor you're using.

    QuickText is exactly that - a show it quick facility for Live Playback on the fly.

    Real text creation can be found by right clicking over an empty workspace cell and selecting Create > Text. Far more comprehensive in features.


    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post
    4. Rotation, how about some sort of angle finder so we can see if we are 30 degrees, 45 degrees, 58.9 degrees or 90 degrees. Etc... Useful when rotating ANYTHING.
    Again I think your using the live play tools to the right of the main screen. These are designed for live adjustments and effects on the fly. They don't have any effect during cue creation.

    The tools in the cue creation effects do display the current angle.

    Add > Effect > Key Effect > Rotation for example. In there all the controls display the angle.

    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post
    5. SHIFT KEY held down makes a straight line... If I hold the SHIFT KEY down after clicking somewhere, then my next click will be exactly in a straight line, preferably an exactly horizontal or vertical line. So if I want to draw a horizontal line that is perfect, I click (or is it ctrl-click?) and then hold the shift key and it will lock the next click into either a horizontal line or a vertical line - depending on how I move the mouse. You might even add 30,45 and 60 if you are feeling feisty.
    There's a straight line tool - the line without any points drawn in it. You can tell if its horizontal as it becomes stepped along its length if not.


    Quote Originally Posted by tsteele93 View Post

    Just a few thoughts after trying to trace a bitmap (unsuccessfully - I ended up with a bunch of DOTS instead of LINES. Oops. Maybe I should have been using CTRL-CLICK? I need to watch that video again...

    Just thinking out loud as I use the program. Is there a place for these kinds of requests/suggestions? If so I will move my post there... Thanks!
    You can make suggestions to Pangolin via their contact form on their web site.

    However, be aware that QS is deliberately limited on the creation side as its designed primarily as a semi-pro / hobbyist tool although several professionals on here use it for professional shows as it is easily powerful enough and it's easy to use. If you want true pro power then you need Beyond.

  6. #6
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    I should have added that most of the cue creation limitations are in the drawing program and so really only restrict animation ability. Even then if you're any good at drawing, you should still be able to get good results. The animator is quite good at filling in frames between a 1st frame and a last frame in a sequence which can save hours of work - usually just a few stray points to pull into line.

    There's plenty of power for creating beam cues. I've created dozens in QS.

    When you mentioned the straight line above and lines at certain angles it got me thinking, are you trying to create beam cues in the animator?

    If so, then you're probably going about it the wrong way. 99% of beam cues can be created using the Abstract Editor or Advanced Image synthesizer.

    You don't have direct access to the Advanced Image synthesizer but you can get access by creating a copy of an existing cue of a type that's similar to what you want to create to a spare workspace cell and then clicking to edit it. You can then edit it into what ever you want and save it and you'll have a new cue that' synthesised.
    Last edited by White-Light; 08-23-2012 at 01:48.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by White-Light View Post
    Why would text stay in the box for next time when you've deleted it?

    I'm also not sure which Text editor you're using.

    QuickText is exactly that - a show it quick facility for Live Playback on the fly.
    Everything I am referring to is in the frame animation editor.

    I use a lot of photoshop type programs where you can tell it to automatically leave the last text typed in the text box when you click on text again.

    The reason for this is that often when you are adding text to (anything) a drawing or frame, you are experimenting with fonts and placement. If you don't like it, you hit cancel and then text again. If it holds state and has the text already in the box then you are saving a lot of time. Also, there are many situations where you are entering the same - or similar - things in the text box more than once. Having it already there is a time saver.

    My situation was that I wanted to add the word "BEACH" to a frame. I tried it with one font and it didn't work. So I canceled and tries another, etc... I also tried it in different places, and ended up typing BEACH a hundred times.

    You can make suggestions to Pangolin via their contact form on their web site.

    However, be aware that QS is deliberately limited on the creation side as its designed primarily as a semi-pro / hobbyist tool although several professionals on here use it for professional shows as it is easily powerful enough and it's easy to use. If you want true pro power then you need Beyond.
    Yeah, this is a hobby for me and I don't imagine I'll ever be doing pro shows. I guess that I am used to the power of photo editing software and would like that same power when creating an image for a laser show graphic.

    Maybe I can find something by Sergey that can draw for me or maybe there is a way to save a photoshop created file with all the heavy lifting done in the photo editing software and maybe pangolin can import it there.

    I'm a fan of quick show, but it is a bit weak on importing logos accurately, which wouldn't be too big a deal if they were easily edited after it sucked them in....

    Thanks for the tips, alt-backspace is a big help.

  8. #8
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    TBH the secret with logos is in the adjustments.

    There are 3 methods of drawing and several sliders to find the best method.

    If you struggle with a particular part them one trick is to trace it twice - get a perfect trace of everything but the awkward part then re-trace the awkward part and adjust so that's perfect even if the rest of it is screwed.

    The you delete the poor part of each frame, cut and paste one of the good parts into a new frame in the other good frame then merge.

    Voila, a perfect logo made up of 2 halves.

    The one that I last had to do this with was the BP logo:




    It doesn't look that hard but on the copy I had I could never trace the outer flower part. Either the centre was perfect or the outer was perfect but not both. Hence the double trace trick.

    I'm giving all the secrets away now.

  9. #9
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    EDIT, I wrote this while you were posting the one above. I will try your double trace idea. Thanks!



    Also, let me explain better. I had a logo that I wanted to project. Nothing crazy, just a cartoon-ish logo of the radio station I work for...

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...0015500&type=1

    I use QS to do a quick trace and it makes an overly complicated version with incorrect colors.

    So I load the quick trace into a frame (letter Q or whatever) then I click on it and choose edit.

    I show all the points and start deleting some and changing the color of some, etc...

    Basically I am trying to simplify the quick trace into something the projector can show.

    But that editor has some quirks and limitations that make it hard for me to do this... Maybe that isn't the best way to do it?

    I've even tried using photoshop to create a very basic three color version of the logo with many of the nuances and lines removed and THEN trying to import with quick trace, but QS still doesn't get it very close.

  10. #10
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    |I got a good trace at the 1st attempt by taking the number of colours back to 2 and tracing by colour. OK it's black and white but colour is easy to put back.

    That said it is complicated but that's down to the logo:





    You have a drop shadow and that will cause the double lining.

    You had the right thinking putting it in Photoshop 1st.

    That's another trick I use where areas aren't clearly defined. Picture quality doesn't matter as its the line boundary that counts so things like simplifying or increasing contrast between areas are all tricks you can do to help the trace program.

    I've actually done it for you here - had to simplify it in Photoshop and had to remove the bottom text to keep the frame rate usable.

    It will flicker as its only 17 fps but at least you have the logo:




    The Quick Frames File is here to download: B937.qfrm

    Hope this helps.

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