Alkalite Tracpod 84 Bedienungsanleitung

Aalborg University Copenhagen Medialogy Cand. Sc. – 10th semester project Project Report ”DMX Director” - Architecture of a 3D light-programming

Figure 4. Image illustrating replacement of gobo wheels in a projector, illustrating their placement in it (Martin Mac 2000 spot projector user manua

Figure 70. Dependence of the ray-tracing algorithm (based on cone tessellating) on the sampling resolution An additional difficulty in the ray cas

Figure 71. The results of the current version of the ray intersection testing The effects of the current version of the light testing algorithm ca

10.3 General overview of the Virtools user site engine The Virtools composition is organised in two Virtools Scenes – Login Scene and World Scene. T

With this, the init phase is finished, and the application enters a state of constant listening to user input via keyboard and mouse listeners; this i

The numerated blocks on Figure 72 delimit the main function blocks: 1. Init phase scripts 2. Player listener (listener to player controls, like pl

The key in this organisation is the Projectors array – any actions on the user interface that change a projector parameter, change it in the Proj

11 Conclusion and perspectives The online system, whose architecture is presented in this document, answers the initial demands, which is to provid

possible delivery technologies. Virtools is chosen, is spite of the huge price tag, as a 3D API that is more specifically related to issues in 3D appl

and keyboard based, first-person camera navigation, as implemented in the prototype, bear a more direct resemblance to a game). In retrospect, the

Appendix Appendix A. List of keyboard camera commands Navigation Pilot mode: W – forward (zoom in) S – back (zoom out) D – turn (rotate) right A

real-time, with information about individual rotating gobo patterns – with a decent level of realistic approximation, yet without choking the 3D engin

Appendix B. Client-server communication chart Figure 73. Chart of the communication process, and stages in the user site – the client side (the Vir

List of references [1]. Martin, User manual, MAC 2000 Profile II (Rev. M), http://martin.com/service/downloadfile.asp?name=UM_MAC2000ProfileII_EN_M.

[17]. gMA PC software, http://www.actlighting.com/MAlighting/gmapcpresnetation.htm [18]. MA Lighting: Lighting Consoles / grandMA 3D / FAQs, http://w

[34]. Broll, W. et al, "The Virtual Round Table - a Collaborative Augmented Multi-User Environment", GMD - German National Research Center

implemented in audio and video sequencing software, where visualisation of cues in relation to time is a standard problem; however, it cannot be expec

7. Design of a cue programming engine and interface, integrated with both the rendering preview and the database storage – and eventually producing d

3 Related work This project is in many respects unique – hence finding related work to use as a reference was difficult. The primary idea of the s

Networked Intelligent Collaborative System [35]” aiming towards “transparent communication between participants to make them feel that they are meetin

the issues about technological deployment, which becomes almost critical in the context of multi-user consumption – and deployment is usually not a to

4 Development work phases and report structure It is obvious that answering the demands that arise from the initial considerations is a complex tas

1. Database and user set up and administration 2. Development of a cue programming and playback (sequencing) engine, integrated both with a real-t

5 General application model As mentioned before, it was determined early on, that the solution should include two separate interfaces, an admini

Abstract / synopsis The system architecture described in this report, is an integral part of an event, where a two-week light-show is envisioned, w

rendered by a server side script is a standard practise. The user site is the 3D web interface, intended primarily for use by the pupils, and it is he

6 Initial prototype Due to the specific differences between the functionality of the administration and user web interface, different technologica

This initial prototype featured a non-functional login page, after which, as can be seen, it is a simple HTML based website for table administrati

The user site prototype was accessible through a single HTML page, as it was programmed as a Macromedia Director movie file – all additional branc

using already provided spot light models, and using the built in rendering capability of, in this case, Director. In that sense, while a projector was

display, paging and indexing of database data, as well as components that deal with time formatting and display, which is of essence in the administra

However, the benefits of Virtools far outweigh Director – Virtools is targeted towards 3D (even game development for Xbox), can be trusted with the we

The development initially started on the administration site, which was developed in two major versions (an additional, minor redesign was performed

Figure 9. Screenshots of several different versions of the user site prototype. The roman numerals indicate version numbers. VIIIIVXIII

9 Database and user set-up and administration 9.1 Usage phases and user set-up As illustrated on Figure 6. The general model of the web applica

Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Initial considerations and analysis 4 3 Related work 10 4 Development work phases and report structure 13

addition, they keep in contact with the teachers, as official representatives of participating schools, passing on information about the system if nec

• Student [groups] – Each student account refers actually to a student group which has a definite group slot within the allocated 15 minutes for that

database, into DMX compatible data, so that they can be used as actual sources of the event show. "DMX Director" - Architecture of a 3D li

9.2 Database set-up From the discussion so far, it can be concluded that although there are four main user groups, since the guest account can be ha

The administrator table has id column, which simply serves as a primary key, and login and password fields as all other tables. Actually, the field

task of the administrator identity is to manage information stored in this table (as well as its own, administrator table). The current format of

SQL sentences and troubleshooting while coding the database interaction. Finally, it works, and so far no database related problems were identified in

9.3 Administrator site walkthrough The administrator site, in its current version is programmed as an ASP .NET application in C#, with a code-behin

For the administrator version, this is the initial screen displayed: Figure 15. Initial administrator screen (help tab) In both versions, afte

The regular view at a table through this interface looks like this: Figure 16. A regular view at the administrators table An entry can be edited b

Appendix A. List of keyboard camera commands 105 Appendix B. Client-server communication chart 106 List of references 107 Contents 2

The third choice, Event Calendar, presents a slightly different view at the entries in the teacher [class] table – using the Calendar ASP .NET user co

The Send Email screen is meant to facilitate easier communication between the user groups – especially between teachers and administrators, in case

Let’s remember that the teacher is in this case delegated to set up the groups in her own class – hence, at first login, there would be no groups

From this point on, the teacher can enter login and password information for his student groups, and once that is set up, the student groups are rea

the point where the user log off is defined. This is actually handled quite easily by placing a log-off button. The problem is however, that most comp

The current version of the administration site raises the is_online flag for the respective user upon successful login. When the user is done, she is

Certainly, instructed users will give permission to the popup window, but this is not yet the end of the story. Once the user closes the main browse

At the present time, this problematic behaviour with the pop-ups is the only serious issue with the administration site – as often accounts are left

10 3D user interface development With the user and database set-up in place, it is easier to commence the work on the 3D user interface. Considering

This software package is actually free for download, however, keep in mind that this is an application aimed at users of the GrandMA console, as clo

1 Introduction The system described in this report, is an integral part of an event, entitled "Fra Damp til Digital" [40], where a two-wee

Thus, in spite of the impressive hardware interfacing capabilities, GrandMA 3D serves only as an inspiration in relation to the degree of accuracy t

Figure 31. The sequencer related GUI of Adobe Premiere Figure 32. The sequencer related GUI of Macromedia Flash One general conclusion for these

Figure 33. The sequencer related GUI of BluffTitler The GUI of BluffTitler is much simpler – rendering each event (here called key) simply as a

Some of these projectors have rotating gobos and some do not; some actually are intended for placement where no light cone is visible either. This mus

user collaborative environment, similar to the massive multiplayer online games, would demand a network loop to be threaded with the needed frame rend

10.1 Interaction and graphic user interface The key features of the interaction and graphic user interface will be presented through a short walkth

Figure 34 shows the login screen, with login and password fields (1), a login button (2) and a server response text field (3). When presented with t

The init phase spawns and sets up the projectors within the world, spawns their light cones, calculates which surfaces are to render a projector ligh

The state presented on Figure 36 renders almost all main elements of the graphic user interface (but one, discussed later), which are: 1) Personali

different resolutions to be chosen for the full screen display – which presents a special problem for the chosen graphic interface. The different use

Figure 2. Images of the area surrounding the tower in Randers Each class from participating schools will be allocated 15 minutes for which to

This is to indicate that the teacher has the permission to edit cues throughout the entire class allocated timeslot. In contrast, the student group ti

When the navigation panel is expanded, it indicates the current navigation mode, which first and foremost relates to the usage of keyboard keys. The n

The left panel can be accessed by clicking the left panel tab: Figure 42. Collapsed (left) and expanded (right) state of the left panel The bottom

10.1.2 Projector selection and edit As discussed previously, the base action for inserting a cue was taken to be: click on a projector to select it

The right panel has not been introduced so far, since after the init phase, there is no projector selection by default (the appearance of the selector

As soon as a selection is made, the user can read out the current value of the parameters of the selection (if they are equal) on the right panel. Aft

The four parameters that can be edited for a projector are regulated through their corresponding areas. The gobo selection area (2) features all gobos

For a single projector selection, if the player time is on a cue that also includes the selected projector, the 1D cursors are bright, and a cross i

There is one more aspect to be considered - the projectors are placed at different “geographic” locations in the world, and sometimes a certain amoun

10.1.3 Player time / cue selection and edit The part of the interaction interface that deals with cue sequencing, selection, and editing, as well as

The two-week light show event, “Fra Damp til Digital”, is a part of a greater celebration event set to celebrate the 100 years of electrification of

interaction allowed with cues. It was found that such a solution with “free” zoom may confuse the users of that age – hence this solution (implemented

• Group zoom level functions These functions are related to time slot displayed on the group timeline. The total zoom button sets the display to the

• Player time control functions These represent one of the key functions in the application. It should be mentioned that all of these functions ac

- Fast backward [7], fast forward [11] – adds or removes a second from the current player time as long as these buttons are held – simulating a fast

rotating, based on the cue data for that particular player time. This is a great visual aid to light designers, and as such is reproduced in PC softwa

within the limits of their group slot – the teacher has access to the entire class timeline. When a multiple selection of cues is made, the user can

operation, however within own group bounds only – meaning that, if a position of a pasted cue happens to overlap with already existing cue, the existi

The load operation triggered by the load button [17] always refers to loading a program from hard disk. In that sense, it triggers the familiar OS-bas

The save button command opens a dialog box, which offers the options of saving to a database or saving to hard disk for teacher or student group acc

Otherwise, the file saving possibility on hard disk comes from the capability of Virtools to save its own internal Arrays as text file – this can h

2 Initial considerations and analysis Within the initial discussions while approaching the problem of the web interface, several issues immediately

three separate materials for the released, pressed and hovered state. This behaviour block has been implemented at several spots in the application. H

some distance from the viewpoint … MIP-mapping helps alleviate this problem. [26].” The technique of mip-mapping often demands that a so-called image

pixel contents from the padded image into the host rectangle, by manipulating the texture u/v coordinates for that rectangle. Figure 57. Texture Map

The final issue related to the 2D interface aspect is a problem, which in one or another way is always present in web design, and that is layout appea

Virtools offers so-called “stick” parameters, to help alleviate such problems – the erroneous behavior might be alleviated by having the elements stic

indicates – and was certainly one of the development hotspots that were least expected in this project. "DMX Director" - Architecture of a

10.2 Projector lights modelling A key problem in the user site application is modelling the visual appearance of light projectors and their lights,

their light cones (hereafter called site spawning process), which directly addresses the light placement design issue – within this code, measures hav

As visible on Figure 61, the spot light accurately models a projector, in all respects apart from the rendering of a gobo pattern. However, there is

A possibility is to target one earlier generation of graphic cards, those that support multitexturing (feature from 1998, [24]), as multitexturing

which it might be programmed, the specifics of the possibilities of the projectors cannot be ignored, and must be accounted for – as eventually, what

your target platform. [31] (Texture (CKTexture))”. In addition, a Mesh itself can have several so-called Material Channels: “A Mesh can have up to 8 a

is the only one (in that example) that has light materials applied as channels to its Mesh – one for rendering each gobo pattern respectively. Each li

utilising hardware acceleration of the GPU is a necessity for a custom texture drawing of gobos). In this case, as well as when using a spot light m

Functions defined through States, that modify object's texture coordinates according to certain State values. Pseudo environment mapping, chrome

10.2.2 Projector setup process The role of the projector setup process in the init phase of the user site, can be briefly summarised like this: -

Figure 66.The expected hierarchy of objects: at the root of the scene (left), expanded view at the master node for the world objects (middle), expand

Besides the Projectors Parent, the master light cone object, the master selector object and the main camera reside in the root of the 3D scene, and ar

So, in more detail, the projector setup algorithm looks like this. First the applications looks for all Projectors_ and enumerates them in an array

According to Figure 69, the unknown side h is: ()2tanαdh = Eq 10-1 It’s a little more difficult to apply that data to the scaling of t

cone once it is available. This was one of the most problematic tasks to approach. In essence, some type of a test is needed to determine which surfac