ILDA Format

[keeperx]

Yeah .. We gotta make sure people stop thinking for themselves and that we put all the focus and praise of the entire indusry on bill.. Otherwise we might accidentaly find a new and exciting way of doing this...
PROGRESS MUST BE STOPPED.. FREE THINKING IS THE DEVIL.. ALL HAIL BILL!!!

[Mr.Coffee]

James:

I think creating your own ilda-like format is a good idea, and a good step to help ensure the effectiveness of your program (i have recently started playing with it)

Bill:

thanks for your input, and clarification. the fact that you are one of the leaders in this field and regularly contribute to this forum is an invaluable asset.

Bill and James:
Thank you for your contribution to this thread. before I started reading this thread I understood little of the IDLA (And other laser) formats. I feel this will help me in future when it comes to solving problems that may occur.
also thanks for keeping this (for the most part) a civil debate.

the last three of you:
Cmon, what are you doing, that's not what this place is about.
you can't make a problem better by contributing to it's downfall.

[James Lehman]

Thinking back on all of the years that this has been going on....

only to read in just this recent thread that neither Bill or anyone else who's ever been a part of the ILDA standards committee ever saw the natural relationship that exists between formats 0, 1, 2 & 3 is absolutely amazing to me.

Quite honestly, I took it as a given that you guys should be the brightest laserist / computer scientists on Earth.

I'm very disappointed. Not only did none of you see it until it was spelled out to the last freakin' character, but even then, you still don't accept that it is a much better way to do this.

The whole world was way over due, waiting for ILDA to come up with a way to do true color. Here it is more than 6 years later, after several people have come and gone from the committee and it isn't even finalized yet!

As artists, all we needed was a painter's palette and a nice paint brush and ILDA handed us a hammer.

Brilliant!

Great job, guys!

James.

[Pangolin]

James,

What I can't see, what you can see, what the entire technical committee can't see, blah blah blah. None of this matters man! What matters is -- what does the fricken display look like? How easy is the darn software to use? How quickly can you get your thoughts "through the machine and onto the screen". THESE are the things that matter to people.

My bottom line will always be with the following statement: "The proof of the puding is in the eating!"

That's a statement I made to Adam, back when he used to hate me . (OK, hate is a strong word, but there was a time when he probably thought I was full of crap or something like that. I will allow him to explain.)

In any event, my point is this. James, if you think you have some wazmo way of doing things that is far superior to anything that anyone else has ever done, then GREAT! I am really happy for you man! BUT, we just all look forward to seeing it at the next PL event. That way we can all see how it all looks and how it all works and how great it is.

James, everything that you have written here and in other forums and on your own web site is nothing but a bunch of words. We'll just have to see how good of a display your system makes.

So, basically, I look forward to seeing you at the next PL meeting, where we can both (as well as others) show our various wares and see how they compare, and how they function with respect to what I wrote above.

Actually I find it funny that you are dwelling on what is perhaps the most arcane of subjects -- what is inside of a single file format that you didn't invent. What about the things that really matter like -- how do people convert video directly to laser? How do people keep their laser safe? What is the most artistic way to combine a collection of images? Or even -- what's the best music to use? Geez!

Bill

[James Lehman]

James,
... blah blah blah. None of this matters... "The proof of the puding is in the eating!"..... the bullshit stops... Geez!

Bill

Anyone else care to comment?

(today _was_ my birthday!....... give me some love! )

James.

[keeperx]

Blah Blah Blah...
James bitches about something technical
Blah Blah Blah...
Bill talks about politics
Blah Blah Blah...
Someone makes fun of James
Blah Blah Blah...
Bill says "Not to be rude but" then is immediately rude
Blah Blah Blah...
Keeperx makes another useless post
Blah Blah Blah...
happy birthday james
Blah Blah Blah...

[buffo]

My bottom line will always be with the following statement: "The proof of the puding is in the eating!"
That's a statement I made to Adam, back when he used to hate me .

HAHA!

I knew that stuff was going to come back and bite me in the ass one day...

Bill is correct: At one point I was of the mindset that Pangolin products were overpriced and only available to the pro's. Bill challenged me with those exact words (the proof of the pudding is in the eating) when he agreed to attend our very first Florida Laser Enthusiast's Meeting. He brought some Pangolin shows with him, and we watched them on DZ's projector. Then he gave a brief demo of the abstract generator, showed us Laser Asteroids, and showed us the Winamp LaserVisualizer Plug-in.

The real "proof", however, came when we were trying to work out a problem that Fred (Astroguy) was having with his RGB projector. He noticed that the test pattern would shutter and jerk back and fourth sometimes. Bill correctly identified the problem as sample jitter, caused by irregularities in the timing of his controller. (Fred was running Mamba Black back then, with the Easylase USB controller.) We unplugged his projector from the easylase, and plugged it into DZ's QM-2000 board. Poof! Just like that, problem solved. The image was rock-solid. And yeah, more than a few people in the room realized that Bill was right all along.

Since then I've come to realize that my feelings about Pangolin were formed out of ignorance. I simply didn't know how much better Pangolin's products really were. Now that I do know, I'm ashamed to read some of the posts I made years ago. Nonetheless, I refuse to edit them. It's part of my past, and it's a good example of how one's mind can be changed if they are open to new ideas. (And indeed, this is one reason why I wanted to experiment with both Laserboy and Spaghetti before forming an opinion of either software project. And yeah, I'm still experimenting...

If you want the gory details of the entire discussion between Bill and I, here's the link to the thread that started it all.

I should also mention that I, like many other people, have mis-read Bill's posts on more than one occasion. I tended to see hostility in his words simply because he was on the other side of the issue. It took me a while to realize that no hostility existed, and that just because someone's answer is short and direct, it doesn't mean they're attacking you. It's a common problem in a low-bandwidth communication medium like the forums, and it's something we all need to be aware of.

Also, Bill is a complex guy, and sometimes I have trouble figuring out where he's coming from. Part of that probably stems from the fact that Bill has multiple things going on in his head at the same time, so even he may be looking at an issue from several angles. So there may be more than one way to take his response. I seem to recall having a similar problem with James at the pre-SELEM dinner party this past summer. I couldn't tell sometimes if he was being serious or just yanking my chain for the hell of it. Kept me on my toes - that's for sure!

Anyway, I'm sure Bill is getting tired of posting his bonafides to each and every hobbyist that thinks they've got it all figured out and Pangolin is all wrong. Chances are good that once you investigate the issue, you'll find that the reason Pangolin does things the way they do is grounded in hard science and/or the economics of the laser show market.

That's not to say that there aren't other ways of doing things that might be better for some people in specific circumstances. While I don't believe James' desire to use color palettes is a benefit to me, evidently he feels very strongly about it. So for him, Laserboy's color system (including the palettes) seems to be the right thing. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. Likewise, Carmangary was adamant about having an open file format to exchange shows (apart from using the ILDA format to output a long string of frames). Being a Pangolin user, that's not an important issue to me either, but I can see how it might be the right thing for him.

I think Bill sums this up quite nicely in the following quote:

if you think you have some wazmo way of doing things that is far superior to anything that anyone else has ever done, then GREAT! I am really happy for you man! BUT, we just all look forward to seeing it at the next PL event. That way we can all see how it all looks and how it all works and how great it is.

To which I would add: "And when we do see how it looks, we can decide for ourselves if it's something we want to use or not." Just like I did with Pangolin... Once I saw it, I decided that, yes, it *was* something I wanted to use.

(today _was_ my birthday!....... give me some love! )

Indeed... Happy Birthday James!

Adam

[Pangolin]

Thanks for the post Adam. Hopefully people will take it to heart.

But as an illustration of my main points, take a look at this post:
http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...9479#post69479

Here's a guy who had been using Cinema 4D and our Lasershow Converter 4D plugin for a matter of a few days! and was able to create the stunning visuals you see on that post. In fact, they are much more stunning because the post shows only stills. Every single one of those is animated...

So, what would you rather have? A palette? Or a tool that allows you to accomplish exactly what's in your mind in a very short matter of time (all without palettes by the way...).

(OK, it is a standard windows color dialog, that technically has some small amount of standard colors people can choose from. Some people might call that a "palette", but more often with computer graphics, you make up custom colors with the RGB sliders.)

Bill

[James Lehman]

The utility of palettes is not the issue of this matter.

The issue is 24 bit color.

The question is; of format 3 vs. formats 4 & 5, which is better.

They both do very much the same thing.

By going with format 3, we get 24 bit color. We can mix formats 0, 1, 2 & 3 into the same file. We maintain the fact that our vector images are always going to be found in format 0 and 1 sections in the file. We maintain the fact that older ILDA file readers will still be able to find useful information in new files that contain 24 bit color. We have the opportunity to save both a format 2 palette and multiple format 3 color tables for the same series of frames in formats 0 and 1. We also have the best way to do laser vector art for single color laser, in the form of a format 2 palette of nothing more than 256 levels from black to white. That is most definitely a palette and it has nothing to do with the default palette of 62 colors.

By going with format 4 & 5, we get 24 bit color and nothing else.

Why would we throw away something for nothing?

James.

[keeperx]

James, i think we already covered that.. the answer is politics, ego, and nothing to do with the technical. There is no argument that Bill can make that shows that format 4 and 5 are technically superior to the format you have proposed. There is no argument that you can make, that that will convince pangolin to make any changes to the format standards.

Its exactly like meeting someone and asking them to buy your manure because its better, but that someone already a steady supply of manure that he gets from his brother. (pun intended)