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Thread: Isn't it time?

  1. #1
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    Default Isn't it time?

    There are many people who get it.

    There are some of those who can express it.

    There are some of us who can put it in code.

    We need the mix.

    Really.

    I have put out what I have in open source for a while now.

    I will explain what is there and how it works to anyone who asks.

    I believe it is a very good foundation as a memory model.
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  2. #2
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    I think most here would agree that I'm a fossil. The youngest of my fossil class at a point in time, by still a cycloid/spiral/colormod/lumia kind of laserist. I was happy that a fellow fossil got the ILDA career achievement award last month. But my fossil “it” is far from most other’s “it” today. And that’s okay. If someone put together a venn diagram of what everyone here thinks “it” is – there would be more than one cluster. My “it” aspires to be no less an art form than the music it attempts to accompany. One of the profound dangers in art is to think there’s just one road to making art. It's a mistake to become so wedded to your tools that it becomes about the tools rather than what’s done with them.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  3. #3
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    Ok. That's cool. I can't argue with that.

    But there is one big "it" that pretty much all laser applications have in common. They all have some kind of memory model that represents 2D and / or 3D vector art and some functions to manipulate it and make use of it.

    I am very grateful that a bunch of very creative people have given me ideas and new directions to make my software better.

    A free and open specification for a vector art storage file is great. But that only has value if you have some idea about what to do with it.
    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. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserist View Post
    One of the profound dangers in art is to think there’s just one road to making art. It's a mistake to become so wedded to your tools that it becomes about the tools rather than what’s done with them.
    thank you for saying this.. i could not possibly agree more.
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

  5. #5
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    One of the reasons I’m a fossil is that I saw and preformed a ton of laser shows using a projector that wasn’t computer controlled. In 1973 computer control was – still in the future.

    Laserium had a 120-bit data channel that updated 40 times a second. There were bytes that controlled Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue Gain. X and Y Master Gain. Spiral In Rate, Spiral Out Rate, Spiral Sweep, Lissajous Rate, Offset Gain, Offset Rate. These were heavily filtered to avoid 8-bit artifacts. There were 4-bytes open intended to do planetarium functions, but I doubt they were ever used anywhere but Griffith Park. That left 32 bits for housekeeping. Switching between the sources to the A & B image buses, selecting the A or B bus to each output, selecting an offset pattern, offset enables, beam kills, rotation selects, rotation enables, configuring the optical head for lumia, diamond spiral enable, variable rotation enables, pdm enable, etc.

    The data channel didn’t do a lot of interesting stuff, but it was important because if the laserist had to do the housekeeping stuff he wouldn’t have hands free to do the interesting stuff. It was the automation of that housekeeping Metadata that allowed Laserium to be Laserium. We never developed to ability to selectively rewrite part of that metadata – it was all or nothing – often requiring multiple short takes to do something complex.

    Your audio analogy is important. Imagine what could be done with a tricked-out console where the laserist could replace existing tracks and laydown new tracks like musician in a multitrack studio, and then mix a new master. (Okay it can be a virtual console/etc/dmx/etc.) Imagine if the laserist could try the gain licks he just performed as colomod and use them for FM of Quadrature Oscillator X, Y, chopper, or whatever? What if the laserist could record a detailed percussion cue track and then decide how to use it? Having a format for recording 2D or 3D vector signals is cool enough, but like I said, it was the console and the metadata that allowed me to do the interesting stuff…
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  6. #6
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    You could start an open source library on GitHub. I know that there are already some out there but nothing is very professional.
    It could be something along the lines of OpenCV but for laser show processing. Basically, the engine for laser display (2D/3D, for real time processing).
    I think it would be a fun project.
    No UI would be needed but it would need to be set up to be used with one.

  7. #7
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    I have already put some effort into separating the LaserBoy code into the memory model classes and the user interface. I should reimagine the whole thing as a lib. Start a new main.cpp file with nothing but #include LaserBoy.hpp and see where that goes.
    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.

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