ILDA Format BS

[The_Doctor]

The "limits of the medium drive the art" fallacy is one that the video art world has been grappling with since the early days. The reason it's a fallacy is, if you want to go back to the limits, you're free to do so; but you're also free to exceed them if you want. Here's to a brave new future of 400k scanners!

Nothing to do with accepting the limits. The point is that to overcome them you can't ignore them. Overcoming them is the craft that makes good new art possible. If you disagree with me deal with the point directly rather than misrepresenting it when talking to someone else.

When you tell a scanner to point to half way along the X axis to the left, you are telling it a direction, a relative distance, and assuming it knows where full scale is. How well it obeys is down to the scan system, but telling it where to plot the point is a simple value statement, literally equivalent to a number. Analog, digital, it doesn't matter, so long as that simple instruction IS that simple. This is why I argue against extending vector language into the scan system. All the scan system needs to do is make the move as fast and accurately as possible while protecting its own hardware. If it's this way (and it always has been, pretty much, despite the vast increase in scan speeds) then it doesn't matter what controller gives the marching orders, and that's the way it ought to be if we want choice in those.

Not one of my arguments is intended to limit progress, quite the reverse, and you'll never understand anything I say if you can't see at least that much.

[drlava]

http://photonlexicon.com/forums/show...8233#post78233

Ironically the last several pages of this thread have been hijacked by us for constructive debate on something other than an ilda file format. How's that for poetic justice?

[Admin]

Poetry in motion I say. Let the good times roll.

[heroic]

Not one of my arguments is intended to limit progress, quite the reverse, and you'll never understand anything I say if you can't see at least that much.

I understand your point of view, and more than that, I respect your opinion, but I must respectfully disagree. I think there's a lot of mileage in "smart scanners", and now that visible lasers are available and cheap I think we're going to start getting a lot of new scanner technologies (read: those not available to conventional manufacturing) popping up. To make those work, we're going to need a bigger boat.

I hope that we understand each other, it seems that we do. I definitely don't want this debate to turn into something retarded where we end up yelling at each other when we could be building wicked awesome lasers- whatever technology we choose to use in doing so.


In other news, I just finished repainting, realigning, cleaning and generally re-engineering my RGB projector, and I'm a happy bunny- much brighter and cleaner scanning now. Plus, it's BRIGHT GREEN. 8)

[The_Doctor]

Agreed. We need to yell at our scanners. I mean, we need to be able to say 'turn left and go so far in such and such a time' and expect them to jump to it. In a sense, it's got to be like a soldier, there's all sorts of neural stuff going on in his head and legs but he's still got to obey a simple order without backchat (feedback). This is the sense in which I mean a simple signal. After all, that's the one thing that shouldn't be negotiable (from a scanner's point of view) so long as it protects itself from damage resulting from reckless orders given to it. The soldier can be very smart, makes the best kind, so long as he does what needs doing.

Daft analogy but it makes the point..

[heroic]

Agreed. We need to yell at our scanners. I mean, we need to be able to say 'turn left and go so far in such and such a time' and expect them to jump to it.

Right, so I want a scanner amp that takes an SPI bitstream that says "Go to (x,y) taking time (t) and hold there for (t)", and then it takes care of it. It tunes itself, it knows its limits, and it can tell the controller things like "I am a 60k scanner" or "My temperature is currently 55 degrees C".

I intend to build such a thing, in my copious free time...

[carmangary]

It sounds like heroic and I are on the same page.

What I don't like about current scanning is that you tell the scanner to go to point x0,y0 and then give it some time to get there then you tell it to go to point x1,y1, and then repeat this a gazillion times. If you look at what is going on inside the scanner amp, you see wicked accelation followed by wicked deceleration. It's basically like being at a stop light and going full throttle when the light turns green and then slamming on the brakes at the next light, then repeating.

There is no method of telling the scanner amp that it has to go to point x0,y0 but don't slow down when you get there because the next step is still on the same path. But, with a smarter scanner you could do that and it could maintain (at least more closely) a constant velocity throughout the image. This would get rid of hot spots (bright dots) where there shouldn't be.

Doctor, I don't know why you are so opposed to that idea or why you think it adds so much complexity and cost. All of this type of technology already exists all around us and it isn't expensive or out of our reach. What I am talking about is the improvement that we saw when we went to radios and TVs with knobs for tuners to push button digital tuners. Everyone can still afford tvs and radios just fine and we don't have to twiddle knobs in order to get a decent signal anymore.

[dsli_jon]

Well, as-long-as it seems like it should-now-be 'OK' to 'thread-jack', here, I'll answer to your post...

*shrug* He can yell at me all he likes; those early shows pushed the technology back then, and everyone knows that they were performed with gear hacked together by hand that was just good enough to work.

Hey, yeah, you're right!...THIS sure looks like 'hack-work', to me! THIS, too...yuck! ...And then they went-on to engineer / design / create projector concepts (ie: can you say, 'turrets'?) that spawned spin-offs and 'copy-cats' and other great-ideas that started / influenced laser Co's, the world-over.. Why? Because the ideas they came up with were brilliant and un-matched in their time - and for DECADES to-come... And for creating some of the types of fx they did / can, there STILL is NO OTHER WAY to re-create some of those breathtaking analog fx...

Ask "YaddaTrance" about His Co's incredibly-innovative DAC / concepts / approach, and the extremely noble-yet-daunting challenge of trying to find a way to preserve / recreate 'true Laserium fx' with todays gear, and if HE thinks it's 'worth it', or if those fx are just 'has-beens'...

This was NOT an argument against 'pushing the envelope', now - of course not!!! You grow / change, or you 'die'...
And yeah,

the Laserium guys would be the first to admit it. Now, we're pushing the technology from another angle, making it cheaper and higher performing.... In fact, they'd be the first to say "look how cool all this new technology we had to develop to get from there to here is!"

...Trust me, they're WAY 'ahead of you' dude!... But it does NOT mean that 'Laserium' shows / fx somehow deserve to be 'put-down' / pegged-as 'obsolete' / 'boring', etc - or whatever you were using them-for as the basis for your 'metaphor' - ONLY point I was making was WAS, what you said could-be taken as a rather 'negative slant' on them, specifically - My suggestion was - use a more 'generic term' to make 'your point'...

But if your intent WAS to 'dis' them, specifically, along-with making your point, (shrug..??) that would make you a very ignorant jerk-off if you harbored an attitude like that about them.... And I CERTAINLY DON'T think you are such a person!!! Again, why? Cause..

I don't see how I was being less than flattering- a modern laser show like one of Hugo's OPSL extravaganzas resembles a Lissajous-heavy analogue light synth performance in the same way my Macbook Pro resembles a Commodore SX64

...Assuming you LIKE Hugo's work. Some do. Some don't. I personally have both been-left with my jaw-dropped, AND, feeling like.. 'Eeah, So, so'.. Doesn't mean Hugo 'sucks'. But it also doesn't mean his approach is the universally 'best way' to make a crowd go 'OMG, that was GREAT!' or just because he uses the 'latest-tech'. And remember, unlike the 'Macbook vs Commodore' analogy, laser shows are often 'better' because of the element of SUBJECTIVITY... technical performance (like in the Mac vs Comm... you get it..) ie, speed, etc is irrelevant, in such-a-case... (ie: 'machita, baby!'..)

ie: How many Laserium shows have you, personally, seen? Have you ever seen a 100% Lumia-Show? (zero graphics, zero beams, etc - nothing but lumia...) OK, yes, what I said about 'subjectivity' applies, but when you can make an all-ages-audience of 1200 people (and 'only-1200' cause that's all that can FIT in the place...) rise to their feet in standing-ovation and clap / cheer for 3-4 minutes - for a lumia-show - that's a pretty-good average / judge of what is 'good', I'd say!

Tell ya what... let's see how many people know who Hugo is in 27 years from now... If he has done shows in 45+ cities, has over 20+ million fans, and is practically a 'household word' - like 'Laserium' - I'll readily stand corrected...

If you think I was being unflattering, so be it. The Model T Ford sucks by modern standards. I think you get my point.

Hey, man - it's not my Co., so if that's how you want them to 'read' you, 'so be it'... I guess I was just not 'feelin' the luv' you 'say' you have for the 'old skool' / them, in your comment...

Seriously, I have great respect for the guys who got all this stuff started in the old days...

That's all I was sayin', bro...make your point about how those first-fx WERE 'primitive', compared to todays' shows, withOUT using THEM in a 'negative-context'. Besides, you don't really want them to give your tickets to the Grand 'Re-Opening' of Laserium this year, to someone else, do ya??!!...

Anyhoo, I gotta go to friggin' SLEEP, now...
peace..
j

[heroic]

Hey, yeah, you're right!...THIS sure looks like 'hack-work', to me!

Woah there. You're tripping over a word that I'm using in a totally different sense to the one you think I am.

A "hack" is a clever and imaginative use of a technology in a way that the original designer may never have imagined. For example, when someone takes the galvos out of a chart recorder and turns them into a way of steering a laser beam, that's a really cool hack.

(for more explanation: http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hack.html

see senses 2, 4, 6.)

I hope you can go back and read what I read and see what I meant.

I'm sure they're still innovating, I look forward to seeing what they come up with- it's a big world and there's room for all sorts of different approaches to the same fundamental medium!

[Stuka]

I call it goop on glass.

Classic!

Actually, even though I'm severely "Pango'd", I'm thinking about adding "goop on glass" to my projector (although it will probably be "clear silicon adhesive on the clear retainer disk from a stack of blank DVD's"). Hope it works!!

As far as my comment about "just making beams and enjoying it", no offense was meant towards you folks who are DEEP into the mathematical / technical aspects of the laser graphics creation & display! At lot of you guys & gals freely share your technical expertise on this forum, which is VERY cool! Unfortunately, some of us "rank amateurs" tend to "get behind the power curve" and get lost in the conversations sometimes! I'm one of those who still thinks it really cool to be able to create rotating 3D text with my Pango gear, without having to refer to the online help!