pangolin Beyond??

[decix]

It's far beyond schedule...

[Stuka]

AND - another drum roll...

Actually, Bill addressed Beyond in a post in this thread a couple of days ago:

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...5&postcount=50

I have a feeling it will be worth the wait!

[DZ]

I have a feeling it will be worth the wait!

Oh I'm sure it will. Everything they release is nothing less than world class, top of the line.

[buffo]

For what it's worth, Beyond is supposed to be pretty revolutionary. Hayden has seen it, and while he couldn't divulge any details, he did say that it would be worth the wait.

Also, Bill mentioned that he got side-tracked with another project that ended up taking a lot more time than he thought it would. Not sure what upgrade this is, but it should be coming out fairly soon. Then he'll be able to devote more time to Beyond.

As DZ said, Showtime and LD are both pretty complicated, so that should keep us busy in the mean time. (Heck, I've still got to wrap my head around all the cool things you can do with LivePro!)

Adam

[drlava]

Beyond sounds like the kind of software that would make a guy like me get p***ed!
But before that, I would require myself to obtain public show licenses to make it worthwhile.
:P

[buffo]

Yeah, it might be enough to push you over the edge, Andrew...

Bill is rather cryptic when he talks about Beyond. He says it's a totally new way to control a laser projector. I'm not really sure what that means though.

At one point, I thought that maybe Beyond was some sort of raster graphics engine. Sort of like what LD-2000 is already capable of, only with much higher resolution and frame rate. Think laser television and you've got the idea I was considering.

But then I realized that such an advancement in the software would be pointless without a revolutionary leap in scanner performance. (And I mean truly revolutionary; at least an order of magnitude increase in speed.) Since there doesn't appear to be any hint of such a product in the pipeline, I don't think raster graphics has anything to do with Beyond.

However, if not rasters, then what? How *else* can you control the projector? You either send vector data or raster data, right? Well, I suppose you could sent polar coordinate vector data, or even circular rasters (which sounds like a contradiction in terms, really, but you get the point), but none of that is essentially any different. So we're still in the dark.

Hopefully we'll get some hint of it after the 2009 ILDA conference... (crosses fingers)

Adam

[drlava]

All this kind of makes you wonder where the patent for 'steering a laser beam with two gimbaled mirrors which rotate at orthogonal angles using a software and hardware based control scheme' is at.
Obviously it never existed at one point, there were mirrors, there were lasers, then at one point it existed. We can consider ourselves very lucky that this patent is not restricting out hobby right now. The future is much less certain.

But at the same time, it *is* time for a 'whole new thing'

[mixedgas]

Dr Lava wrote blah blah blah.....

Oh you mean the patent on the laser show projector...

Was it laser images or laser media? Steve's memory is rusty.....

wait one. engaging patent server applet

US Patent

4,006,970
1977 issue date 1977 + 17 = 94 or experation...

aH, yes, Images.

PL members could learn from viewing this....


YOU'LL NEED ALTERNATIF, A FREE PATCH, TO VIEW IT:

http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=...iew+first+page

I saw my first real laser show on one of those.

sTEVE

[drlava]

awesome Steve. It even uses prisms insetad of dichroics
You should consider writing a 'history of laser projection' article! We newbies could (and stil need to) learn a lot.
thanks for the link, and the thought to include an alternative to Slowtime.

[flecom]