TraceIt Question

[tsteele93]

I still think Tom you're expecting the laser software to do much more of the work for you than it can, and I think you'll find that with any software.

I've taken 30 mins out this morning over breakfast to work on the Batman (Robin character) for you.

This was the result using nothing but QS alone on the original trace:





It's now between 14 and 15 FPS. It will still be flickery but probably acceptable.

The point is the tools are there to edit traces you just have to take the time to learn and use them.

You seem to be searching for a more accurate trace but the the more accurate the trace the more detail you get and with lasers detail is the enemy. Lasers draw outlines best.

Straight away I can tell you from experience that if you were takeaway the R badge and reduce the eyes from circles to lines you'd gain maybe 3-4 fps.

If you want to know how I worked on it, I zoomed in then used the point removal tool to remove lines a point at a time. I then simplified the trace. I added back a couple of lines to fill in the gaps and re-coloured as necessary. I also lassoed and pulled a couple of points into line to close gaps in some lines.

That was it. What was required was patience and a bit of work. No trace programme will ever do that for you!

All you get from a more complex programme is a bigger colouring palette and a bigger selection of drawing tools, but at the end of the day, they're only useful if you're drawing from scratch and have the skill to do that. Even then, you'll need to keep it simple and keep drawings to outlines.

If you want the QS file, it's here:Attachment 34542

Al

Hey Al,

I confess that I am apparently not doing a very good job of communicating. I'm sorry for that but I will try again...

I am definitely not looking for a more complex trace. What I am looking for is a good trace that I can go in and DUMB DOWN (while trying to use a little artistic ability to keep the drawing recognizable) the trace file so that the projector can display it well.

Just to try and be really clear, I DO understand that the more accurate the trace, the more complex it will be and the projector won't be able to keep a good fps. That is precisely why I want to edit it after trace-it does the initial import. I want to take the overly complex image and try to edit it into a still-recognizable, but not overly complex image.

I did not finish this last night, but take a look at what I've done here with trace-it (which is much easier for ME than quick trace and then the frame / animation editor.)

I THINK by saving in the native format I can come back and continue work on it at a later time and still be able to save as ILD when I am done.

I will upload it from my laptop and hopefully it will make sense what I am doing? I am removing chunks of traces where the flesh tone of Robin's legs were imported and trying to remove lots of double traces as well. I've probably cut the point count in half and I'm nowhere near finished. I think that I can get down to ~500-600 points and still have the image integrity.

Again, I'm not lacking patience, I just think the software should work WITH you to speed up the deleting, editing and moving of points. Trace-it is way easier for me to work with than frame / animation editor. It implements many of my suggestions. Now if it would let me use he scroll wheel on my mouse to zoom in and out!

[tsteele93]

http://www.4shared.com/file/2zEOKFKE...rtialedit.html ILDA file

http://www.4shared.com/file/tJ9yCNGC...rtialedit.html LPC file


traceit1 by tsteele93, on Flickr

[masterpj]

just hand trace it already and be done with it.

[tsteele93]

Morning Tom -

I'll give you an A+ for enthusiasm, but a B- for following direction...

I know you're not trying to be a PITA (thank-you for that!), but for a new guy you ARE starting to come across as a bit "high maintenance"!

Fair enough, I'll certainly allow you to gracefully bow out. I do think that I am battling a little bit of resistance to the idea that a favorite software cannot have any suggestions for improvement... I mean that very politely, but I really think that there is value in looking at long-established photo-editing software when looking for ways to improve a section of the software that imports photos and lets you edit laser traces based on the underlying photo. It makes a lot of logical sense.

And if we are giving grades for following directions, this is a thread about Trace-It, NOT quick trace or frame/animation editor and I think that we may have some misunderstandings based on that... In some instances I think we are talking about different software.

You seem to be very hung up on the fact that a certain aspect of the software (one most experienced Pangolin users consider very trivial), doesn't work the way you think it should, versus really learning the software and exploring the capabilities and what it can do. To each his own, but I will offer this additional advice before moving on:

I understand that it might appear that way to someone who is using the whole of the software and by your own admission may consider this to be a trivial part of the software. To me it isn't being hung up on a part of the software, it is the natural progression from loading the software and trying to do a specific thing and finding it very difficult to do that particular thing... I'm surprised it is difficult.

Quick trace is pretty awesome, but editing the import after you have tweaked it and sucked it into QS is not so awesome - that part of the software feels very klunky - even compared to Trace-It. Which I assume is something Pangolin bought from another company and made available to FB3 users? I don't really understand that part of the laser software thing yet. I'm sure if you've been doing this for a while it makes perfect sense why you would buy a software/hardware package and then need to go to the forums and find out that there is another piece of software that duplicates functionality in the main program that you should download as well. I just didn't find that out soon enough, or I wouldn't have bothered with most of my suggestions for the frame/animation editor in QS becaused Trace-It has implemented MANY of the exact suggestions I had for QS.

* This is generally a VERY supportive community, and several folks from around the globe are offering all kinds of recommendations and assistance to help you make the most of the Pangolin gear you bought. If you continue to stay hung up on something the software doesn't do the way you think it should, instead of exploring its true capabilites, you're probably not going to get a lot of support in the future. The QuickShow package is the result of several years of beta testing and input from experienced laserists, DJ's, and VJ's all over the world, and it does what it does by design. There are a LOT of users on this forum that would have embraced the chance to start off with the equipment you have available to you!

I'm sorry that is what you have taken from my attempts to figure out how to use the software and my apparently misguided beliefs that there might be someone at Pangolin who might want to hear suggestions on how to improve parts of the software.

I've never been one to feel that brand loyalty meant that I couldn't suggest improvements or complain about parts I didn't like. I put my $600 in the game and to me that is the ultimate show of support. It feeds the families of the fine folks down in Orlando at Pangolin (I grew up just down 520/528 - then the Bee Line, now the Beach Line from them and still go back and visit my folks regularly, I'd like to stop in and see them if it is a storefront operation, sometime!) and there isn't any better show of support than that... but I don't think that choosing a brand of software to like deprives me of the right to make suggestions for improvements or comment on difficulties I have with the software.

I certainly don't think that I have come in here with a PANGOLIN SUCKS attitude. Yes, I did express a disappointment upon learning about some of the fenced-in aspects of the software that I was not aware of when purchasing, but I personally don't think that makes me a trouble maker.

I have tried to be very polite and I think in most - if not all - of my posts I have expressed the sentiment that I am sure Pangolin has reasons for some of the decisions they have made. But on a very personal level, I'm one of those people who thinks that DRM and most of the implementations of that sort of thing are well-meant but pointless and harassing to the honest users. Locking QS users to a specific format and not allowing us to export to a universal format is disappointing. I don't think that I am out of bounds for expressing that sentiment. From some of the replies I have gotten, I'm not alone in feeling that way.

From my perspective, it sure would be nice to be able to buy LSX or Laser Cam or some other software and feed it into the FB3 DAC and see laser output. From someone new to the game, it is very unexpected that it doesn't work that way and disappointing. Isn't it fairly easy to step back from what you know and look at it from a perspective of someone who is new? There are a lot of analogies that would explain why it is surprising.

What if I bought a Sony Blu-Ray player and found that it would only output movies to a Sony TV? That would seem odd... Or what if I bought Photoshop but found that only certain video cards made by adobe could show the images it produced on my screen? Or if my sound card would only work with SOME audio programs, but others would not because my sound card had a proprietary format and the company had not released an API/SDK?

The laser projector DAC/software relationship is unlike anything else most of us are familiar with in the world of computers.

* Consolidate your Q & A sessions into a single thread. I think you have 2 or 3 threads going that are essentially discussing the same thing ~ focusing on one will help us old farts keep up with what's going on!!

Fair enough, I think that I did one of them because I was switching to talk about Trace-It rather than QS and the frame/animation editor and I wanted to TRY and reduce the confusion.

* Start a NEW thread, and specify exactly what it is you are looking for in a laser software package, how you think it should work, specific features you need, etc. There are enough non (and anti) Pangolin users on this forum that something might be out there that fits the bill. If you go that route, I would caution you to look beyond just the software, and see what is available as far as user support, community of users, show and graphic content, etc...

* If you decide to get rid of the Pangolin gear, list it in the Buy/Sell section of this forum. Chances are it will sell very quickly, especially if you offer it at a good price!

I am disappointed that you are making those assumptions. I'll take the blame for apparently coming in too heavy handed. I definitely have not intended to and I really don't think that I HAVE suggested that "I'm so upset with this software that I'm going to get rid of it!" I think that I'm in my 90 day window for a FULL refund but I don't intend to use it, nor do I really think that I'll be getting rid of it. I AM disappointed that I can't use the hardware with other programs, but I've made quite a few comments about how impressed I am with the software. I'm sure they get buried in the complaints about specific issues or things that I don't like, but honestly I have made several statements attesting to how amazed I am with the power and ease-of-use that QS offers the new user.

Again, I don't feel like that locks me out of being able to complain about PARTS of the program that I think are NOT up-to-par with the rest of the software and I don't think it should keep me from being able to complain about DRM management and how Pangolin has chosen to implement it on the program.

I haven't done a full-on review because I haven't scratched the surface, but that is kind of the point - and perhaps an area where we disagree on how to do this - I am addressing the parts I am using right now. Al has given me a look into the power of being able to animate from a starting point and having QS fill in the frames to the ending point and that sounds AMAZING to me. I'm just not ready for that yet because I want to tweak my starting points and ending points with a point-editor or trace-editor or whatever we are going to call it. RIGHT NOW, I want to edit a picture and make it into the best graphic that I can, THEN I will move on to animating it from one frame to another. But all of these in-depth things you say I should be trying... I'm not ready for them yet.

I am plodding along methodically from my new-user perspective and wanting to do THING A. Once I get it figured out and sorted out (and perhaps offer some suggestions on how the software could do that better) then I will move to THING B and piss everyone off about that.

And I still think you need to at least TRY a beam show using your current gear (I discussed that somewhere in one of your threads).
You can get a cheap smoke machine suitable for home use at Guitar Center, Party City, etc.; everything else you need, you already have!

Good luck to you, which ever route you go.

I'm not against beam shows and I've certainly seen videos of them all over the forums and youtube etc... It just isn't where I am right now. As I said, I am really trying to walk before I run. I want to understand how to edit a graphic and then I will try animating it, etc... I'll definitely get to beam shows. Who knows, I might look back at graphics and chuckle one day, but they are where I am starting from - the whole reason I got a projector to begin with is to try and trace some logos for a friend who is having a private party and wanted logos on a wall - nothing fancy.

I was thrilled at my ability to trace a couple of logos from jpg. But then I tried to edit them and that is when I made everyone mad!

[tsteele93]

just hand trace it already and be done with it.

I suck at hand trace, although I do have a Wacom upstairs that I need to bring down and try, maybe I could do better with it... Not really a bad idea BUT does that mean that I shouldn't suggest improvements for making the point editing part of the software better?

I am starting to think that I will just shut up and quit irritating everyone. Or I'll just ask quick questions and see if I am overlooking something obvious and then move on. I kind of get it, none of you wrote the software and none of you are going to be implementing any of my suggestions of how to improve it so unless Pangolin looks in on the discussion and decides me suggestions have merit, I'm just basically making noise and irritating the fans of the product.

I'll bow out of the discussion and let White-Light offer what he would like to offer and otherwise leave it alone. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Tom

[White-Light]

I do think that I am battling a little bit of resistance to the idea that a favorite software cannot have any suggestions for improvement...

It can, contact Pangolin. However I'd be surprised if they made improvements to QS, more likely Beyond Draw. At the end of the day it's down to positioning of the software and they not going to be likely to give top notch drawing ability to hobbyist level software.

But by all means suggest you never know.

They have a web form on their web site for feedback: http://www.pangolin.com/contact/

http://www.4shared.com/file/2zEOKFKE...rtialedit.html ILDA file

http://www.4shared.com/file/tJ9yCNGC...rtialedit.html LPC file


traceit1 by tsteele93, on Flickr

I can't download any of your files because that host requires membership.

However, just looking at it I'd be surprised if you got more than 2-3fps from that.

To check you need to hook up your FB3 to the PC then hit output from QS (you don't need tha laser connected). At the bottom right hand side of the window on the tool bar you'll find the frame rate shown.

Anything above 30fps is ideal. 20-29fps good. 14-19 fps acceptable but flickery. Below 14FPS, you're going to get a lot of flicker, probably to an unacceptable level.

At a few fps it will be a disaster and may even over tax the scanners.

[tsteele93]

My bad, I just looked for a free hosting site and that came up. I did not realize... I'll get some hosting.

EDIT: TRY THIS SITE

http://www.filedropper.com/robinpartialedit2


I am still working on the graphic above, I agree it will still be way too complex. I'll post my final version when I get done, maybe that will make more sense.

I will grant you that you did a lot in a short amount of time! I'm just kind of trying to see HOW far I can take it to try and get close to the original but also get a god frame rate. Thanks for all of your help and patience!

Tom

[White-Light]

To remove lines point by point use the point removal tool - an arrow surrounded by dots with a "-" sign.

You can remove point by point without a lasso in sight!

As for the file, thanks for putting it up but I only really wanted it to test your frame rate, which is something you can do yourself now if you follow my directions above (no laser needed).

Good luck with the editing and with laser graphics remember KISS - keep it simple stupid! (apologies for the last word, its the abbreviation not me!)

[tsteele93]

Ok,

Honest question to the Pangolin fans... is this not a problem?

I have opened Grayson3.jpg in Trace-It. I have done a lot of editing but I want to do some more later. It is mostly done, but for some reason when I import it into QS there are some glitches that need fixing.

So I save the file that I am working on... I've tried .ILD and .LPC, my only two choices.

Now I come back after dinner to do some more editing.

I cannot open either of those files with Trace-It. I have NO WAY of continuing to edit the file. I can't share it with you and ask you to edit it. I can do NOTHING except load it into QS and use the frame editor which is horrible compared to Trace-It.

How is this not a problem? Is it just because I'm the only one that seems to want to edit graphics? Or is there some obvious, easy way to do this that I'm overlooking?

Any pointers on how to edit graphic files would be appreciated...

Tom

[White-Light]

I can't help you on TraceIt as I only ever use the QS internal trace facility as it does everything I require.

Others on here know TraceIT much better than I do.

Beyond that, try contacting Pangolin. They're usually very good at answering questions promptly.

There's the contact form I posted earlier and also the Pangolin forum. You might even find the question already answered over there.