ildaGen - ILDA file creation tool

[Grix]

congratulations to you and whiteg. it's was really thrilling to see the innovations from Photonlexicon be so rewarded.

Thank you, and likewise! A category sweep two years in a row is a tremendous achievement!

[danielbriggs]

Hi Gitle,
I've updated to V1.0.7 now; some great new features; thanks!

Some really minor things I've noticed, and wondered if they could be looked at for future versions?
- When Square Grid mode is active, the cursor snaps to the grid intersections (this is great) however when moving the cursor outside the preview window, the "snap to cursor" mode still is active on all of the drawing functions / menus etc. Could the snap to grid be set to work only in the drawing window? Also is there any way to change the grid spacing easily?
- On any of the two dotted blanking modes, is there any way to specify the number of points (absolutely or relatively, I don't know what's best) for the blanking "dwells" to get brighter or dimmer single beams through the shape?

Thanks for the great work!

[Grix]

Hi Gitle,
I've updated to V1.0.7 now; some great new features; thanks!

Some really minor things I've noticed, and wondered if they could be looked at for future versions?
- When Square Grid mode is active, the cursor snaps to the grid intersections (this is great) however when moving the cursor outside the preview window, the "snap to cursor" mode still is active on all of the drawing functions / menus etc. Could the snap to grid be set to work only in the drawing window? Also is there any way to change the grid spacing easily?
- On any of the two dotted blanking modes, is there any way to specify the number of points (absolutely or relatively, I don't know what's best) for the blanking "dwells" to get brighter or dimmer single beams through the shape?

Thanks for the great work!

Thanks for the suggestions!

The square grid improvements is definitely doable, I'll see if I can make them into the next version.

As for the dotted blanking modes, this should already be possible, right click on the blanked dot mode buttons and a little menu should pop up. The custom option seems to be capped at 32 points per dot for some reason though, I'll increase that for the next version. I should probably make those options more visible too..
Or did I misunderstand what you meant?

[danielbriggs]

Ah thanks; I'll try that later.

One other thing I forgot... If you have grid (s) mode switched on, and then the switch the green X/Y crosshair mode on, I think the white/grey grid is drawn over the green X/Y as it's not visible when both are on.
Any way to swap this draw order? Such that you can have grid mode on, with a green cross hair (to easily identify 0,0 of X+Y etc.) It's not a big problem, just a nice little thing

Thanks!

[Grix]

Sure, I'll take a look at that too.

[Grix]

I released a new version with the suggested grid improvements, and some more stuff. Hold S and use up/down keys to change the size. Let me know if you think of a more elegant way of controlling that, not too happy with the current keyboard shortcut solution

[Grix]

New version today, 1.1.

The largest new feature are envelopes in the timeline mode. They are effect automation layers, if you have used some video editing software like Sony Vegas you are probably familiar with the concept. Basically you can vary some property of the laser projection freely by drawing a graph describing the change of the property over time. For example you can create an envelope for intensity, and draw a little slope at the start or end of an object on the timeline, and you'll have created a fade in/out effect. Other properties you can edit in an envelope layer include displacement on both axes, color hue, individual red, green and blue color channels. More, like size and rotation are of course planned in the future.
I think this is a really useful feature, it makes a lot of fancy effects not only possible but easy to make.

For the next few versions I will work a bit on the frame editor mode, for example I want to make it possible to split and combine objects at arbitrary positions. This would make some cool effects possible, like a figure breaking apart into small pieces. Also I'm planning support for legacy .ild version for those with SD card readers that don't support version 5.

Also I think I am getting closer to the point where I can try taking the biggest step so far: adding support for actual laser playback through DACs. If so, which DACs would you like to see support for first? Is the new ILDA digital network protocol something to focus on as well? I was thinking I would maybe use DrLava's "all-in-one" DAC library, but it is not royalty free AFAIK and the focus on LasershowGen is low cost, so I'd have to work out a good deal. Also that library is not cross-platform. That's another thing I haven't mentioned, I've been slowly stripping away platform-dependent stuff from the program, so soon I might be able to release a client for Mac and Linux too.

[colouredmirrorball]

If you want platform independent then IDN is the way to go. We're working on a real life implementation.

[JohnYayas]

Adding DAC support is really dirt simple to be honest. I'd start with whichever DAC you own since you would be able to test with it. And once you have added support for one, you can pretty much use that as a template for others. The APIs and structures are all similar. However, most use an x86 DLL so that prevents them from being cross platform. IDN would be a good first candidate for going cross platform but it isn't as easy and not too many people use it. I'm all about IDN, though. I can't wait until it is built into projectors and the days of DB25 cables are over.

[Grix]

colouredmirrorball: Would that be a hardware or software implementation? I mean like, an actual DAC using IDN, or a library to make it easier for developers to support it?

JohnYayas: I only have a sound card dac at the moment, and not many people use those these days apparently. I think I'll pick up a riya as well at least, you mentioned earlier you sell them for $100, right? If so, expect a PM sometime.

What about this library, does anyone have experience with it? http://www.fab-favreau.com/index.php...ShowController