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Thread: Point optimisation: how to

  1. #61
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    Every sentence in your response is wrong. You did get your name right, though. I think I'll end this now.

  2. #62
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    Let's leave that up to other PL forum readers.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  3. #63
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    ILDA could very easily have stored the size in bytes of the section that follows the header. Instead it stores the number of elements of an undefined size.

    That is an epic fail.

    If you knew anything about the ILDA file format, then you would know that every 32 byte section header has an unused byte at the end. They could have used that to store the size in bytes of every element of the section that follows the header, Then you could have up to 65535 elements of up to 255 bytes each and know exactly how big the section is (quantity * size), without having to know anything about what the section contains. This would add not-one-byte to the size of the file.

    DUH!

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-21-2015 at 14:35.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  4. #64
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    Who is this "ILDA" of whom you speak? For all these years that you have been championing your view, you have never once acknowledged the process and methodology for ratifying an ILDA standard.

    A long ago sample of the continuously changing Technical Committee and other interested individuals picked a format at a meeting and via other forms of communication for follow-up. The TechComm proposed it, spent a year championing it, opened it for comment and review, then submitted it to the board. The process takes a year or more. It was open for peer review. It passed thru the process. There was nothing arbitrary about it.

    Then it was revised as needed, and revisions take another year.

    This was all done by volunteers, it is not an ANSI or SAE standard where it is continually peer reviewed.

    If you want to change it, an ILDA member must make a motion to start the process again, Then the TechComm meets to recommend it, and the Board and Membership votes in the end. There are plenty of discussion stages in the process. Outside opinion is usually very welcome.

    People who MADE and MAKE their living working on show systems needed a way to interchange images without their proprietary formats getting in the way.
    It is a compromise, and like all compromises, it has some defects. However it works and has stood the test of time on a international basis.

    Changes do happen, too. Once upon the time the ILDA standard projector connector was a 37 pin CPC connector. Very industrial and expensive. But one cheapskate ILDA member (my Mentor and Friend) noted that switchboxes for Parallel Printer cords were cheap and widely available. Just about overnight the idea of the 25 pin connector surpassed the existing standard. It went thru the review process, and was adopted. We're still using it. Its Kid Tested, and Mother Approved.

    PLers can opine, However, if change is to be made there is a defined process. I find it that I've not heard too many people suggesting a permanent change to the format. Perhaps that is because it works and has inertia?

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 01-21-2015 at 15:09.
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  5. #65
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    Apparently your memory is failing.

    http://laserboy.org/formatt

    "It was open for peer review. ... Outside opinion is usually very welcome."

    Bullshit.

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-21-2015 at 16:01.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Apparently your memory is failing.

    http://laserboy.org/formatt

    "It was open for peer review. ... Outside opinion is usually very welcome."

    Bullshit.

    James.
    With respect to your accomplishments and knowledge, James, aren't you the same guy who has ignored years of people telling you on a ratio of at least 99:1 that you should change the UI to the program you constantly tout?

    If you don't take constructive criticism regarding your contributions to the community, why should you be able to argue that a recognized body with processes and revisions (based on more than one person's opinion) doesn't do enough?

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

  7. #67
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    I'm not offering the LaserBoy application as anything more than something you may or may not want to use at no cost to you.

    I'm not putting myself out there as an "International" standards association.

    I'm telling people about the merits of the technology I have discovered and developed.

    I'm offering information that is tested and working.

    And I have taken LOTS of input from LB users and added or fixed TONS of stuff in the code that way.

    Rather than not using the application because you don't like the interface, one should consider the idea that maybe there is a good reason it is that way.

    That's how I look at Linux, C and C++. It is what it is because it was well designed and works. Those things are tools available to me for free so I choose to use them as-they-are.

    This is kind-of OT, but whatever....

    LaserBoy shows you 3D color laser vector art as it is.

    It lets you move two cursors around on the actual vertices in their natural order in each frame. You have a beginning and an end of a selection of consecutive vertices. You can move them each incrementally or automatically to jump from one selected lit segment to the next or previous.

    The art is 3D and the resolution is 65535 points in all three axes.

    Your screen is only about 1000 pixels give or take a few hundred and it's 2D. A mouse can only point to a 2D location on the screen at screen resolution and only one thing at a time.

    So it's a matter of precision.

    The first laser art application I ever used was Anarchy. I liked it a lot. But I did not like the ambiguity or the lack of precision. I found myself pointing at vertices only to find that there was a pile of them all sitting in what appeared to be the same place. So which one was I pointing at?

    Also, in any mouse driven CAD application there is usually a way to break the normal program flow and use the keyboard to enter exact numerical values.

    So what's the difference?

    You can use a mouse to select an item out of a menu or you can just tap a key for the same result.

    The code that would be required to read and trap mouse events would be overwhelming.

    LaserBoy is a state machine. It holds a complex memory object of all the frames and a set of palettes. Any one step you take changes the state of the data. Each time you tap a key, it is likely that you have changed the data. If you grabbed a vertex with a mouse and dragged it, the data would change for every pixel the mouse moved. There is no reason for this. You have no need of the data changes between where you started the mouse drag to where you stopped.

    Ultimately, if I changed the UI for LaserBoy it wouldn't be LaserBoy anymore!

    The code is open source and other programmers could use its core and wrap their own mouse driven GUI around it.

    Look at ildSOS.

    If you just get over the lack of mouse and start using it as it is, you might find that the light will go on and you'll say to yourself OH! I get it now!

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-21-2015 at 17:47.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post

    While you're at it, why not tell them to fix format 3! ?
    I disagree. Format 4/5 makes more sense than format 3 for storing true colour. 4/5 is the fix for format 3. They should, of course, fix their documentation on their website so the Chinese can make proper format 4/5 SD card readers instead of format 0 only with obscure colorisation.



    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    ILDA could very easily have stored the size in bytes of the section that follows the header. Instead it stores the number of elements of an undefined size.

    That is an epic fail.

    If you knew anything about the ILDA file format, then you would know that every 32 byte section header has an unused byte at the end. They could have used that to store the size in bytes of every element of the section that follows the header, Then you could have up to 65535 elements of up to 255 bytes each and know exactly how big the section is (quantity * size), without having to know anything about what the section contains. This would add not-one-byte to the size of the file.

    DUH!

    James.
    That actually makes a lot of sense. The question is does it matter? Will Ilda ever release a new format standard? With the dawn of the age of digital amps, point based laser art will become obsolete.

  9. #69
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    Forget about the ILDA file format. It is what it is and isn't going to change. Most will agree that it has a lot of shortcomings and could be replaced with something better. My point of view that a WAV file is no better. There may be some aspects of it that offer advantages but the disadvantages negate any of them. James will be the first to tell you that he knows more than anyone about storing laser data but he will also tell you that the LaserBoy! user interface is all you ever need to create laser shows. How do you argue with that kind of logic?

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnYayas View Post
    he will also tell you that the LaserBoy! user interface is all you ever need to create laser shows.
    Hah, everybody knows IldaViewer is the best and only way to create lasershows!

    (No, really).

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