Looking for someone who can create a basic light show for us

[colouredmirrorball]

The last two videos you posted are private.

It looks like only the Y axis is inverted, not the X axis.
Really weird how it only displays numbers/palette colours up to about 50. That makes absolutely no sense. You need as many bits to count to 50 as you need to count to 64 in binary. So what's the gain?

It's easy to optimise the file by adding more points in between. This makes the art better defined since the scanners will have more time to draw the shape. But this also induces more flicker. So it's up to you how much optimisation you want.

[egghead27]

Hi Guys,

The videos should be available now, they were uploading when I posted earlier which is why you may have been told by youtube they were private.

There is X Y adjustment function in the menu on the laser, maybe I can invert there

Will keep you posted

BTW it was meant to be 20k scanner however the manual that came with stated 15k , it was cheap and it was from china so my expectations were low

[colouredmirrorball]

Hi Guys,

I have tried a quick programme file on the device to play with speed settings

contents of file are

ildatest.ild,5,100
ildatest.ild,20,100
ildatest.ild,40,100
ildatest.ild,60,100
ildatest.ild,80,100
ildatest.ild,100,100
1_to_64.ild,5,10
1_to_64.ild,20,10
1_to_64.ild,40,10
1_to_64.ild,60,10

first field is file name, second field is speed, last is number of loops
going above about 40 didnt seem to have an impact on the display speed that was obvious to my eye

What do you mean by "speed"? Is it the animation speed, or the scan speed? Do the frames play faster after each other if you increase the number or are the scanners going faster?

If it is the scan speed, the images will deform and you might possibly damage the scanners.

[mixedgas]

The scrolling text looks very good.

Steve

[masterpj]

Just to add to what PJ has said, the ILDA Test pattern should be projected at 8 degrees otherwise it's meaningless in determining speed.

Actually if the circkle is in the square and any value increase does not affect the circkles size anymore (because likely the built in controller does not allow for a higher scanspeed) then the size does not matter anymore. I do recommend increasing the other values to see if it makes the circkle inside the square shrink without you increasing the size, that way you can determine if any speed value or other value change has affect on the scanrate/scanspeed. If not: Keep it on the highest and we will move on from there. The ilda test is the most important graphic you have right now for making this all work out for you.

If the circkle does not get affected anymore with speed changes then this is the speed we should work at and that should do.

I will send you a graphic in a bit through PM. For your scanners safety and lifespan I recommend putting the size to it's smallest and turning the size up when the graphic is being scanned (if possible) don't go too far. (the angle you were scanning was fine but a tad smaller is playing it even safer). If images start to wobble then stop the laser immediately! Very likely you wont get this but it's good to mention just incase.

Large scan size isn't needed. The thing with graphics is that you should usually let distance do the work for you when it comes to size of a graphic.

(Also Thanks mixedgas)

[egghead27]

Hi Guys,
We have made some progress, the images were being inverted by a setting on the projector that we must have accidentally set without understanding the implications

a video output is here
http://youtu.be/kNS2tlexZYg

should be available in about an hour, forgive the camera work, its cold in here and my hand was shaking a bit

the results are similar to before although text no longer upside down

Re the comment
"What do you mean by "speed"? Is it the animation speed, or the scan speed? Do the frames play faster after each other if you increase the number or are the scanners going faster?

If it is the scan speed, the images will deform and you might possibly damage the scanners."


its a field in the file and seems to be an arbitrary play the image faster setting. It seems to max out at about 40, settings above this dont make a difference that I can see visually

so looking at
1_to_64.ild,5,10
1_to_64.ild,20,10
1_to_64.ild,40,10

the numbers will play relatively slowly for the first line, then a lot faster for the second line then as fast as the projector seems capable of for the third
in each instances its 10 loops. There is a video of it here http://youtu.be/Zq3a-eHd1j8 if you want to see for yourself. The numbers start a little way into the video

Regards

Kurt

[masterpj]

Hello egghead.
I send you a test file that's originally ment for 30kpps scanners (check your PM box).
It's a special ilda file and I'm sending it to you as I want you to check if it scans properly.

It will flicker and do scan it at a small angle to start off with.
If it looks proper *either tell me visually from your own judgement or take a picture if you are able to*.

Especially pay special focus on the eye.. wobbly lines for instance will matter in my judgement if we can move on to making the actual graphics or not.
If not then it's back to the drawing table.

The graphic should look like this *but solid blue*:

Few notes: You are not allowed to distribute the send ilda file and the image I am sending here as reference is intentionally obstructed so nobody can use my images as promotional material without my permission.

[egghead27]

Hi Masterpj,

Video of the output is here http://youtu.be/Az9r8tFTwss
Should be online in about half an hour

It looked OK to me, some of the detail is not great , for example the nose is mostly displayed rather than fully however for our purposes its OK

I projected it onto the roof rather than the wall as it was a bit clearer to film so there is a little bit of keystone

When you say scan at a small angle I don't really have a lot of control as I simply copy the ilda onto an SD card and play it.
The projector has what I would call a zoom control that makes images smaller or larger, I guess this is what you mean ?
Its currently at its smallest and is more than enough for the final location I have in mind

I have also acquired a copy of spaghetti and am playing with it, the output from that seems to play at a slightly different speed, slower on the laser than the PC screen. I dont know if its relevant to you developing something, just thought I would mention it

Regards

Kurt

[masterpj]

Hello Kurt,

It seems to be close to good.
Also do you have a controller to go with that spaghetti software so you can hook the projector up with your pc or is it to load in files only?
It would make things easier as you can adjust the scanner speed with that and hopefully color shift.

Most of the problems I'm seeing there are not scanner related *which is good*
But more or less color timing related.. (which is awkward) but I can make out where the problems are present so I can add extra measures in the graphics to resolve that *its line ending and beginning related
What I can also try is sending you various color shifted graphics (actually will do that now!)
To see if that fixes the weird color problems.

This most certainly helped though. I will message you the fee later before I start working on the graphics and if the price is right to you I'll get to work right away.
Most time will be spend on the hand optimizing.

Regarding angle it's totally fine your scanners don't seem to complain so don't bother with that anymore.

Edit: send you the same frame with the colors shifted to a value of -5
This might make things look worse or better so do let me know.
It's to see if we can make it look a bit better quality wise, don't forget the further you project the bigger the artifacts become on a projection

If you are in a rush with the project we could speed up the communication by adding me on skype which is masterpj55 (but this will do, we are getting there)
(regarding others reading this feel free to add me on skype, I love to chat about lasers and cats and what not)

[egghead27]

to me it looks a bit better around the nose

video is here http://youtu.be/ZrQt1loOeVY

should be online in about 10 minutes

re fee I am happy to pay something reasonable however we don't have a huge budget and just want some text and maybe or logo if its not to challenging, send me a PM with what you think is reasonable. We can also skip the logo as I dont expect the display to last before someone complains to someone about something

I dont have a controller for spaghetti, only the ishow one and when I try and use that the shows play stupidly slow so I threw it in the to hard basket for the moment

although the stuff I am doing in spaghetti seems to display OK on the screen its shows very slowly on the projector, I suspect its either the projector is used to working faster or its the wide horizontal scan its struggling with