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Thread: Creating first ILDA

  1. #1
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    Default Creating first ILDA

    I am just getting into animating for laser displays.
    I already animate in AE and MAX, what is the best way to get my animations to ILDA format for display?

    How do you define specific splines for color?
    For instance, I have a simple text logo that has 3 colors.
    Do you render for each color pass?

    Excited to learn the process!

    If there is already a guide for this please point me in the right direction
    Thanks!

  2. #2
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    You can export in full color dxf files and import them into LaserBoy.
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  3. #3
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by 3DPiper View Post
    I am just getting into animating for laser displays.
    I already animate in AE and MAX, what is the best way to get my animations to ILDA format for display?

    How do you define specific splines for color?
    For instance, I have a simple text logo that has 3 colors.
    Do you render for each color pass?

    Excited to learn the process!

    If there is already a guide for this please point me in the right direction
    Thanks!
    You change the color as you draw, in one pass. ILDA defines a point as a color, which means the laser beam will travel from its current point (wherever that is) to the specified point, using the specified color. Would be nice if there was more control so that you could apply gradients but there is no way to control the speed of the galvos other than applying a lot of points with small steps.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    You can export in full color dxf files and import them into LaserBoy.
    Thanks! I will check it out!

  5. #5
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    May 2021
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnYayas View Post
    You change the color as you draw, in one pass. ILDA defines a point as a color, which means the laser beam will travel from its current point (wherever that is) to the specified point, using the specified color. Would be nice if there was more control so that you could apply gradients but there is no way to control the speed of the galvos other than applying a lot of points with small steps.
    Thank you. I understand the end result mechanics, I was more curious on the front end when you are creating the animation.
    It looks like LaserBoy will do what I need (if I am understanding correctly). If I feed it a color DXF sequence, the colors are maintained and represented in the final laser projection.
    I wasn't sure if people were drawing line segment by line segment and choosing colors along the way- that seems very tedious and difficult to create an animation!

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3DPiper View Post
    Thank you. I understand the end result mechanics, I was more curious on the front end when you are creating the animation.
    It looks like LaserBoy will do what I need (if I am understanding correctly). If I feed it a color DXF sequence, the colors are maintained and represented in the final laser projection.
    I wasn't sure if people were drawing line segment by line segment and choosing colors along the way- that seems very tedious and difficult to create an animation!
    LaserBoy can only read a reasonable subset of the DXF ENTITES.

    POINT
    LINE
    POLYLINE
    LWPOLYLINE
    3DFACE
    ARC
    CIRCLE
    ELLIPSE
    TEXT

    So if you have SPLINEs in your drawing you have to export them as PLOYLINEs

    If you want to make your ILDA files as generic as possible, you should probably try to do a best match to the default ilda palette of 63 colors (in LaserBoy). If your stuff just doesn't look good that way then save as either format 4 or 5.

    By default DXF files use a palette of 256 colors, but you can also save colors as 24 bit RGB per entity.

    There are also some special optimization steps that can clean up the DXF so that it is suitable as a laser frame.
    Last edited by james; 05-12-2021 at 06:16.
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  7. #7
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    Thank you, I will start running some tests..
    When rendering, what resolution and aspect ratio do you render to? Does it matter since it is vector?

  8. #8
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    Yes it is vector but it's in signed short integers from -32767 to +32767. LaserBoy does the scaling for you.
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  9. #9
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    So 2D DXF files seem to come into LaserBoy with no problem, all colors are retained etc. Yay!
    However, none of my 3D DXF exports show up, though. Even a simple box.
    Is there a specific export setting I need to set?

  10. #10
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    Can you post some examples?

    DXF is plain ASCII text. So you can open it in notepad or whatever.

    Look for the ENTITES section and see if it is made of the line primitives that LB knows how to read.

    I bet your 3D stuff is all about surfaces and not lines or edges.
    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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