Holy hell this page is busted

A palette is a way to store colour information for laser art. They are used in older versions of ILDA files (format 0 and 1) - though they are found in other forms as well, usually in older systems. Points in a format 0 or 1 ilda file have a number which corresponds to a colour index in a palette. A palette can be stored inside an Ilda file as format 2.

The upside for storing colours this way is that you don't need as much memory as when you would store RGB data with each point: with palettes every point only needs one byte instead of three. A palette also allows for easily changing the colours of laser art, which is very useful when art is transferred to other systems with another white balance. It allows for the unique effect of colour cycling, where the colours shift through the palette, which is not easy to do with RGB based systems.

The downside is that the total amount of colours per frame is limited to 256, making smooth colour transformations impossible. Another downside is that most software doesn't include the palette in the ilda file so programs opening format 0 and 1 ilda files have to guess which palette was originally used. This opened the doors widely for incompatible files between companies and systems. Ilda tried to battle this by [http://www.laserist.org/StandardsDocs/IMPLEPAL.pdf proposing a standard] based on a 256 colour palette. Despite their effort, the unofficial industry standard is a 64 colour palette.

Standard 64 colour palette

The 64 colour unofficial standard palette, as displayed in IldaViewer: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=44371&d=1407929413.png

These values were extracted from a palette file included in Ild Sôs. They are fairly accurate but small deviations on the actual colour might occur.

{| class=“wikitable sortable”

! Colour index !! Red value [0-255] !! Green value [0-255] !! Blue value [0-255]

0 255 0
1 255 16
2 255 32
3 255 48
4 255 64
5 255 80
6 255 96
7 255 112
8 255 128
9 255 144
10 255 160
11 255 176
12 255 192
13 255 208
14 255 224
15 255 240
16 255 255
17 224 255
18 192 255
19 160 255
20 128 255
21 96 255
22 64 255
23 32 255
24 0 255
25 0 255
26 0 255
27 0 255
28 0 255
29 0 255
30 0 255
31 0 255
32 0 130
33 0 114
34 0 104
35 10 96
36 0 82
37 0 74
38 0 64
39 0 32
40 0 0
41 32 0
42 64 0
43 96 0
44 128 0
45 160 0
46 192 0
47 224 0
48 255 0
49 255 32
50 255 64
51 255 96
52 255 128
53 255 160
54 255 192
55 255 224
56 255 255
57 255 224
58 255 192
59 255 160
60 255 128
61 255 96
62 255 64
63 15 32

This last colour should supposedly be (0,0,0).

Ilda standard 256 palette

The official 256 colour palette, as viewed in IldaViewer: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=44372&d=1407929413

More detail about this palette can be found here: http://www.laserist.org/StandardsDocs/IMPLEPAL.pdf Remarkably, this palette is nowhere to be found on the laserist.org website. The values below are exported from a palette found in Ild Sôs. {| class=“wikitable sortable”

! Colour index !! Red value [0-255] !! Green value [0-255] !! Blue value [0-255]

0 0 0
1 255 255
2 255 0
3 255 255
4 0 255
5 0 255
6 0 0
7 255 0
8 255 128
9 255 140
10 255 151
11 255 163
12 255 174
13 255 186
14 255 197
15 255 209
16 255 220
17 255 232
18 255 243
19 255 255
20 243 255
21 232 255
22 220 255
23 209 255
24 197 255
25 186 255
26 174 255
27 163 255
28 151 255
29 140 255
30 128 255
31 128 255
32 128 255
33 128 255
34 128 255
35 128 255
36 128 255
37 128 255
38 128 255
39 128 255
40 128 255
41 128 255
42 128 243
43 128 232
44 128 220
45 128 209
46 128 197
47 128 186
48 128 174
49 128 163
50 128 151
51 128 140
52 128 128
53 140 128
54 151 128
55 163 128
56 174 128
57 186 128
58 197 128
59 209 128
60 220 128
61 232 128
62 243 128
63 255 128
64 255 128
65 255 128
66 255 128
67 255 128
68 255 128
69 255 128
70 255 128
71 255 128
72 255 128
73 255 128
74 255 0
75 255 23
76 255 46
77 255 70
78 255 93
79 255 116
80 255 139
81 255 162
82 255 185
83 255 209
84 255 232
85 255 255
86 232 255
87 209 255
88 185 255
89 162 255
90 139 255
91 116 255
92 93 255
93 70 255
94 46 255
95 23 255
96 0 255
97 0 255
98 0 255
99 0 255
100 0 255
101 0 255
102 0 255
103 0 255
104 0 255
105 0 255
106 0 255
107 0 255
108 0 232
109 0 209
110 0 185
111 0 162
112 0 139
113 0 116
114 0 93
115 0 70
116 0 46
117 0 23
118 0 0
119 23 0
120 46 0
121 70 0
122 93 0
123 116 0
124 139 0
125 162 0
126 185 0
127 209 0
128 232 0
129 255 0
130 255 0
131 255 0
132 255 0
133 255 0
134 255 0
135 255 0
136 255 0
137 255 0
138 255 0
139 255 0
140 128 0
141 128 12
142 128 23
143 128 35
144 128 47
145 128 58
146 128 70
147 128 81
148 128 93
149 128 105
150 128 116
151 128 128
152 116 128
153 105 128
154 93 128
155 81 128
156 70 128
157 58 128
158 47 128
159 35 128
160 23 128
161 12 128
162 0 128
163 0 128
164 0 128
165 0 128
166 0 128
167 0 128
168 0 128
169 0 128
170 0 128
171 0 128
172 0 128
173 0 128
174 0 116
175 0 105
176 0 93
177 0 81
178 0 70
179 0 58
180 0 47
181 0 35
182 0 23
183 0 12
184 0 0
185 12 0
186 23 0
187 35 0
188 47 0
189 58 0
190 70 0
191 81 0
192 93 0
193 105 0
194 116 0
195 128 0
196 128 0
197 128 0
198 128 0
199 128 0
200 128 0
201 128 0
202 128 0
203 128 0
204 128 0
205 128 0
206 255 192
207 255 64
208 192 0
209 64 0
210 255 255
211 255 255
212 192 192
213 64 64
214 192 255
215 64 255
216 0 192
217 0 64
218 192 255
219 64 255
220 0 192
221 0 64
222 192 192
223 64 64
224 0 0
225 0 0
226 255 192
227 255 64
228 192 0
229 64 0
230 255 96
231 255 255
232 245 245
233 235 235
234 224 224
235 213 213
236 203 203
237 192 192
238 181 181
239 171 171
240 160 160
241 149 149
242 139 139
243 128 128
244 117 117
245 107 107
246 96 96
247 85 85
248 75 75
249 64 64
250 53 53
251 43 43
252 32 32
253 21 21
254 11 11
255 0 0