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Thread: ILD Render - rendering laser graphics from Blender & Inkscape

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by swamidog View Post
    Even so, our utility comes with usage documentation.
    Have you ever read LaserBoy_Basics.txt in the zip?
    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.

  2. #32
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    If your goal is to learn how to play the guitar and you're disappointed because you don't know what part to put in your mouth or how to blow into it, you probably won't be very good at it.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
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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. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Have you ever read LaserBoy_Basics.txt in the zip?
    yup.

    "There are two ways to call an effect function by name. From main, in the
    o output file menu, choose 1 ild. Choose a directory. Choose from
    options 4, 5 or 6. Or from main choose option n.

    Effects that work on selected frames require that some frames are selected.
    Some of them take a specific number of frames. Some don't.

    You will see a list of available effects by name. Type the name and [Enter]."

    this is exactly what a mouse / gui is for.

    i invite you to take a look into usability vs. functionality research.
    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.

  4. #34
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    I'm sure you are a very talented and clever person.

    Apparently you know how to manage a command prompt application of your own with no mouse.

    You obviously have downloaded the LB zip.

    The only thing preventing you from using it to accomplish your stated goal is your attitude.

    That's unfortunate.
    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.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Apparently you know how to manage a command prompt application of your own with no mouse.
    Yes. I've been doing unix/linux system administration specializing in IT Security / Compliance for Fortune 500 companies for the last 25 years. I know my way around a command line.

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    You obviously have downloaded the LB zip.
    Yes. I even built it on my mac and burned several hours poking at it before giving up in order to prevent my brain from falling into some Lovecraftian madness.

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    The only thing preventing you from using it to accomplish your stated goal is your attitude.

    That's unfortunate.
    Sorry... I don't have patience for things that don't work in logical or intuitive ways... or at least have real documentation.

    You've worked hard on LaserBoy and it does some really cool things, but the lack of usability and documentation makes me not interested in working with it.
    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.

  6. #36
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    Albert Einstein once said:

    "Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution."
    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.

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    I'm sure you are a very talented and clever person.

    Apparently you know how to manage a command prompt application of your own with no mouse.

    You obviously have downloaded the LB zip.

    The only thing preventing you from using it to accomplish your stated goal is your attitude.

    That's unfortunate.
    What is preventing you from changing LaserBoy to work in a universally acceptable way other than your attitude?
    I get the fact that you made it the way you want it. I get that it is open source and people could modify it to work the way they want if they really wanted to and could figure out how.
    What I don't get is why you can't understand that LaserBoy is so backwards from what people would consider to be normal software that they don't want to touch it.
    In economics there is something called opportunity cost. It is basically the cost of lost opportunity due to spending your time or money doing something else. I think most people have realized that the opportunity cost of using LaserBoy is greater than the value it provides and therefore do not use it. No one cares if it is written in C++ or Python.

  8. #38
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    Recently, Derek Holzer, the author of "Vector Synthesis" and moderator of the FB group of the same name connected with me on zoom. I opened LaserBoy on my Ubuntu machine and shared that window as my video. The conversation covered all kinds of things. At one point he asked about dxf import. He found a nice collection of free 3D models of various polyhedra. So I grabbed a couple of them and opened them in LB. They were messed up. They rendered something, but it was wrong. I looked at the dxf code and found that they were defined as a set of 3DFACE ENTITES. The only reason LB knew anything about that is because my brother had sent me a stellated dodecahedron quite some time ago that was also defined as 3DFACE. I just wanted to see it, so I cobbled together a chunk of code for 3DFACE. My brother's model was centered around the origin. DH's models were not. My code was drawing extra lines after finishing the polygons of each face back to the origin. So I couldn't see it in my brother's model, but it was an obvious problem in these newer models. We talked about all kinds of stuff LB can do and he was trying to figure out how and where he could fit it into his workflow. He is almost entirely an analog synth with other real-time modulations kind of guy. I showed him the menu that renders math figures and text. He asked if they could be animated in any way. We talked for about 3 hours until he said. OK My brains are oozing out of my ears.

    Just after that conversation, I fixed the 3DFACE, sent him a wave clip of the 3D model with full 3D optimization once through all the points in the frame. He wanted that to use as a sample set. Then I got to work on adding the LaserBoy Formatted ASCII Text "math" section and after that I added "text".

    This kind of collaboration with other artists is almost always super productive.

    Before this, another artist wanted to convert a whole set of dxf files into a frame set. My code converted each frame independently. His frames had a fixed origin and objects moving all over the place. When it was rendered in LB, it look really weird because each frame was being centered and scaled independent of the others. It was like the camera was moving and zooming. I already had a segment class for 3D_double coordinates for rendering the real numbers in dxf, but I needed a real segment set to render the whole set of dxf files to be able to scale the whole thing to fit into 3D short integer space. So there it was. This was later used by another artist to do a museum installation.

    Before that another guy wanted a technical solution for marking a large area with circuit like lines and text labels on the ends (with a laser projector). So I added the ability to read dxf and the TEXT ENTITY within it. That was the inspiration for both dxf reading and the whole LaserBoy ASCII font rendering system that is currently being used by LB and several other vector signal design applications.

    I cannot overstate the value of working with other people. There is no way I could come up with all the of ideas, resources and data examples that others bring to the conversation. Once a challenge is identified we go through iterations of examples and exchange until the problem is solved. Then everyone else gets to use it.

    I'm sorry you had a bad experience with LB in the past. But that must have been many years ago. SDL 1.2 doesn't work in MacOSX anymore. It hasn't for quite some time. I can only vouch for Linux and Win32. It seems you've created a mental brink wall and dug your heels in behind it. If we could have a conversation about what you have and what you want to do with it it might go a few different ways. You might see me make a fool of myself and have a laugh. You might present me with data that LB doesn't process well and I fix that or you might just get what you want right out of the box. I don't see a downside for you.
    Last edited by james; 08-15-2020 at 22:56.
    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.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnYayas View Post
    What is preventing you from changing LaserBoy to work in a universally acceptable way other than your attitude?
    I thought I answered that. I explained how it was built up from the beginning. If I did add mouse support to it, it would have to be in a way that conforms to the way it works with keyboard events. Then the issue wouldn't be about the lack of mouse support, but rather the way it is implemented.

    There is nothing unusual about a leaning curve being a unique experience for some kind of software utility; especially in the Linux community. There are many situations where an abstract concept must be represented as a string of characters; especially in a console. It's not that difficult, really.
    Last edited by james; 08-13-2020 at 12:19.
    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.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    I thought I answered that. I explained how it was built up from the beginning. If I did add mouse support to it, it would have to be in a way that conforms to the way it works with keyboard events.
    Doesn't have to be. You could refactor it as needed. If the fundamentals of your algorithms are sound they could be reapplied to other frameworks. There are plenty of modern cross platform frameworks now and maybe you might like modern software design if you tried. If it were me, I wouldn't fool around with it, either, to be honest. Too much trouble for not really any reward.

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